Offline (Kinda Sorta Ish)
Posted: Fri 16 September, 2022 Filed under: Business, Domestic, Getting Organised 2 Comments »So – I knew everything had gone too smoothly. Turns out my Sky internet connection won’t be activated for three [insert snarly sweary words here] weeks.
Now, before I go on, I have to emphasise – at least half of this is my fault. I didn’t read the “What’s Next” email completely, just looked at when the engineer would be out to fit the Sky stuff. I absolutely accept that I should’ve read it all through properly. But I didn’t.
On the other side of that, even the engineer didn’t see the information until I showed him where it was in the email – it is not evident that This Is Important – and also they didn’t send through any confirmation text messages which would’ve also made things clear.
Anyway, despite the new place already having in all the infrastructure necessary (access point, cabling etc.) it turns out that OpenReach “need to check everything” before they can allow the connection to be made. And that takes time, because OpenReach are a) a monopoly and b) fucking useless. I have to stay in on the day of the ‘installation’, even though they admit themselves that it is usually done remotely, and they won’t even book an appointment slot – I have to be inconvenienced all fucking day just in case there’s a problem. You can imagine exactly how impressed I am about that one!
As it is, I’m lucky. I’ve got a mobile-internet device (which is what I’m using now) so I’m not completely offline. I’ve also managed to sort out a desk at a local new co-working space for the month, so that I can carry things on without being too inconvenienced. It’s an absolute pain in the arse, and I’m really annoyed by it all (at least partly because I didn’t read that sodding email and try to push for an earlier connection) But it could’ve been so much worse.
As it is, I’ve got the SkyTV installed, set up, and pretty much sorted, I’ll have three or four weeks in which to learn more about the town’s facilities and centre, and… yeah, it could be worse. Plan C would’ve involved continuing to use my current office in Milton Keynes, and just swallowing that mileage for the month. Which would’ve been even more annoying!
Now, I know nothing about these things these days, but couldn’t you just use your mobile phone as a hotspot to link your ‘pc that you work from’ to?
Or do dongles still exist?
As I said, I know nothing about technology any more, and, living in an area with sub-2MB broadband (that has just been diddled out of the promised 900MB service by a company who flouted the rules when they changed in order to keep the ‘right to provide’ and now say they can’t afford to provide, and there’s no way back into the new allocation system they opted the area out of; so much for ‘levelling up’) and crappy mobile signal, I am never likely to.
I could do that, yes, BW. But I’ve also got an old-school 4G modem/dongle that has its own data allowance, and as I’ll be getting rid soon then I figured I might as well make use of it for once.
I found the dongle (for want of a better term) really useful when doing stuff like being in hotels, because it meant I knew my data was staying on my connection rather than going through a ropy network (and usually provided better bandwidth and security than a hotel one as well) And yes, the phone can and does do the same thing – but the dongle was a business expense. 🙂