Wireless and BT

While I’ve been figuring out what I’m going to be doing while I’m based in Cambridge, I’ve been checking out wi-fi access, what it’ll cost, and all that kind of gubbins. I know that the place I’m staying won’t have access, so it’s going to be relevant for evenings and so on. Looking around, there’s plenty of access points, which will make life a lot easier.

At the same time I was also trying to figure out something to do with my BT Broadband account, and checked out the broadband homepage – and bloody hell! Turns out I get 250 minutes a month of wi-fi access along with my BT Broadband account. Well OK, it’s actually a voucher for something like 3,000 minutes – which they reckon works out at 250 minutes per month for the length of my BT Broadband account. But either way, it saves me a fair chunk of money initially. I’ll probably use it up while I’m in Cambridge, but even then I can sort out another 500minutes per month for £5, which still isn’t bad.

The stumbling block, though, was that it was supposed to be activated by an email, which BT were going to send me within 14 days of starting the broadband account. Which was in – um – July. So they hadn’t sent the email, and thus began a spate of phone calls. First to BT customer services, which seemed to end up in India, and a person who really didn’t get the concept of “BT Openzone” vs. “BT Communicator”. And then gave me a number that didn’t exist for some other department in BT. I despair.

Then a call to some other department, who were actually almost semi-helpful. They gave me the number for the Broadband bunch, who then gave me the number for BT Openzone. BT Openzone then insisted that I should talk to BT Broadband – but at least they put me through to the person they’d decided was the right one. It still took another ten minutes for the numpty person at the other end to read all the instructions on their system, still didn’t find anything, and had to go and speak to a supervisor. And then put me through to yet another person, but they eventually did get it sorted, sent the email out again, and lo, I’ve now got the necessary voucher. Took its bloody time, but got there in the end.

So now I just have to wait ’til next week and see how the entire wi-fi thing goes. Should be fun.