Freelance consultant for digital heritage

Moving and internet access

I’ve been a bit slow on the old blogging front lately, due mainly to the fact that I’ve been without an internet connection at home for a month now. Tehmina and I have moved house, and Demon Internet still don’t seem able to cope particularly well with moves. They cut us off 3 weeks before we moved, despite promising that they wouldn’t (“We’ll put a note on your account to disconnect you a few days before you move” ).

When the phone line was connected at our new house, I had to re-order from them (and enter into yet another 12 month contract), only to be informed that there was a “foreign product” that BT Wholesale couldn’t identify to them, which would stop us from having our new connection. This is exactly the same scenario from the last time we moved. The “foreign product” was our ‘old’ Demon account, which they needed to remove themselves (the whole process seems rather arcane), then initiate a new account on the line. It’s probably because we have kept our old number and are on the same exchange. So I had to explain this to Demon all over again.

*sigh*

It looks like they’ve taken my explanation on board, and it looks like we’ll be connected next week, gods willing. Moving your BT phone line couldn’t be easier. They even send you an SMS when your new line is activated. When will moving with broadband be sorted out here in the UK?

On the positive front, at least it means that there are fewer distractions, and we’re getting more of the unpacking done!

On the blogging front, however, it does make it more difficult to update a blog when you can’t get online, so I’m sneaking this post on from work 😉

I’ve just added the “Share This” WordPress plugin (spotted on Mashable), just in case anyone finds something interesting on here, and wants to share it on some of the more popular social bookmarking sites. Snazzy.


Comments

2 responses to “Moving and internet access”

  1. Oh no! I had the same problems when Doug and I moved, different provider, same story; seems to be a pretty common beaurocratic nightmare with contracts being cancelled, new ones drawn up and big gaps in service as the various stages of paper work and button pressing fail to mesh together… Doug and I were given a magic number to allow us to ‘seamlessly move’ but Pipex had never heard of this, although BT seemed to think it wouldn’t be a problem. Pipex went further; they insisted on taking a penalty fee for early contract termination despite the fact i was not, in my view, terminating my contact (simply moving house!) and would be reconnecting with them at the other end. And they took a fortnight to reconnect the internet after BT had cleared the line and graciously paid back the penalty fee a month or so later…

  2. Maybe one day it’ll be like a utility – you just let them know when you’re moving and where and they sort it out…

    They connected us 4 days after our activation date. Better than nothing…