Indebted to dect phones

If you like gizmos, you’ll love what you can get to go about your everyday business nowadays.  Time was when you just got to use bic biros and a pencil sharpener – and one of those plastic tube things to shuffle your paper clips around. But now you have the chance to pick and choose from a bewildering range of telephones.

I guess if you work for as company, you don’t have much say in your choice of telephone systems for business. But if, like me, you work for yourself – the world is your oyster.  You may even feel that you might want to change your BT phone.  After all – there are plenty more to choose from.

I particularly like the pone system that lets you give off the pretence that you have an office – and then divert to your mobile.  Then it is only the fact that mobiles are not supposed to be used on the golf course that may give you away.

So the first thing you should do when you  have a say in what telephones you can use – and buy is find a site where you can look wistfully and even buy digital dect cordless phones. Just imagine – never again need you be tied to your desk by a phone with a cord on it.  Isn’t progress wonderful?

In fact the only thing I do not like about business telephones is that most of the calls you get are ones you do not want to get.  Wouldn’t it be great if you could simply get on with doing your job?  But no, thanks to the telephone, now you can be interrupted at any time of day by some hopeful trying to sell you something.

Some days the calls just go on and on.  It’s very difficult to stay polite.  I remind myself that the nuisance caller is simply doing their job – but I suspect being rude would be better for my sanity.

Office Politics

Where would we be without all these sophisticated office telecoms systems eh? At the weekend my credit card shaped car key stopped working, which made opening and locking the car somewhat difficult. So I rang my local garage on the telephone.

Needless to say they were not answering their telephones. No I was instantly lost deep in the bowels of a voip system giving me a range of choices I did not want. Eventually I got through to someone who could not help me and they diverted me back into the system where I was able to talk to a very helpful man who told me what I needed to do next.

Depressingly, this involved finding a utility bill, my car registration document and an official document with my photo on, then turning up at the garage with £150 so they would then order a new key. Imagine my surprise then when I turned up at the garage later in the day, clutching the afore mentioned documents to find not one but two people sitting at reception with absolutely nothing to do – because the damn VOIP phone system was answering the telephones for them – and making all their customers vow never, ever to buy one of their cars, ever again.

I quietly mentioned in passing that perhaps it is a good idea for a customer-service based business to actually talk with their customers – but I just got a good sneering at. I was tempted to ask about business sdsl availability so they could do everything on line and not have to face real people ever again.

So here I am £150 worse off, still without a key and patiently waiting for Renault to send me another one. When it comes it will let me into the car if I just touch the door handle. And it will lock the car all on its own as I walk away. Great.

What will they think of next? This is the THIRD time my high-tech key has failed. (4th if you count the time I inadvertently put it through a colour-fast cycle in my washing machine. Maybe they will come up with something simple like a key you can use again and again for years. I should be so lucky!

Getting to grips with office equipment

I’ve had yet more problems with BT.  First of all they cut my download capacity even though I am paying at the premium rate.  Then they had the temerity to cut off my broadband altogether, simply because I hadn’t paid the on-line bill which I had not seen.

So all is not well at Rob Towers.  And I have once again been thinking beyond BT home phones for my home phones and broadband service.  The only trouble is deciding who to use nowadays for a telephone system… which has always proved too much of a decision.  I am not much of a telecoms expert.  My prime criteria are that everything works… and that the set-up is easy.  And that help lines, even if they are in India are useful and work.

You’d think that is not too much to ask from a telecoms service.  But it seems that it is.  For a start, without cable, you are somewhat limited in your choice.  You also have Sky to consider.  But you know that they are primarily flogging television channels – so relying on Sky for telephone system as well as your telecoms seems a risky option.

I am sure I am not the only non-techy telecoms user in the world.  I am not ashamed to admit that I don’t know my adsl internet from my sdsl internet.  But like most people – I know somebody that does.  That nice Mr Google can usually be relied upon to come up with the cheapest option.

 So at the moment I am still with BT who are taking a huge monthly fee for servicing a telephone system that is really rather simple – and providing a broadband service that is really rather poor.

The frustrating thing is that there is nothing I can do about the latter.  My poor broadband service is dictated by my poor location (in broadband terms) which is provided b y BT.  Whoever I go too will not be able to alter that salient fact.  This is rather a pity – because it is the most important item on my telecoms agenda.

Drifting downstream without a paddle

Like millions of other unfortunates I get my internet service from British Telecom.  Almost certainly like most of them I am not overly impressed. My first grouse with BT is just how feeble the service actually is out in the boondocks.

The second beef is that they have reduced my connection speed because I have apparently breached their fair usage policy. The end result is that my broadband connection has been reduced to 1Mbps for a minimum of 30 days.

Curiously it is rarely above 1Mbps despite BT’s ludicrous claims on internet connection speed. So effectively nothing has changed except my opinion of BT has plummeted even further.

As I didn’t think this was possible I thought I better start looking aaround again. You see, if you pay through the nose for a service, it seems fair and reasonable that you should be able to use it. And that BT should be making allowances for how many people with computers actually live at a single address.

So the question is – for families and groups of people sharing is seems a business SDSL provider a serious and sensible option? I am beginning to think that it is.

My other concern with BT is their sheer uselessness as a company. I receive an appalling broadband service for which I am paying top dollar. It certainly isn’t good enough to contemplate streaming television programmes through a whizzy hub – so why do BT persist in calling me to ‘upgrade’ me to a service I cannot receive?

Don’t get me wrong. I am sure that IPTV  the way of the future.  Imagine a world where we never have to miss Ready, Steady Cook ever again.  I just can’t even begin to contemplate using it because the infrastructure is not there to use it.

It’s a bit like air-conditioning on the underground…. A good idea – but the Victorians didn’t think people needed to travel to work and be comfortable.

Now we have BT and the government placing the bar for internet services so low that the UK will soon be back in the dark ages

Narrow-minded Business Broadband

What is it with this country’s attitude to broadband?  With the average UK household having play stations and x-boxes hoovering up on-line capacity, let alone the exponential increase in the streaming of television via i-player, not to mention movie and music downloads, I am not sure our ‘high-speed broadband’ can keep up with domestic use – let alone business use.

 No wonder more and more companies are seeking high-speed solutions more in tune with their business needs.  Even businesses like mine.  I work from an office at home.  But it quickly became apparent that I often cannot transfer files and images as rapidly as my clients demand.  If the kids are on the x-box I am in deep trouble.  Even accessing remote servers and electronic filing systems on-line was becoming a problem. 

 One simple and highly effective solution to my problem proved to be line rental.  Now admittedly BT must have millions of satisfied business customers – but I am not one of them.  Their broadband was simply too slow to be useful. 

A few minutes learning about the service of leased line providers proved to be time well spent as they offer tailor-made leasing options which provide a dramatically enhanced service.

 I even began to understand how much money I could save simply by going for a more efficient service.  Understand the difference between ADSL and SDSL affects your need for more business SDSL availability.  ADSL would get those big files into my computer faster than I was sending stuff – essential for background information.  However – once the work is completed I need to rapidly send information – so SDSL makes me just as efficient at sending as receiving. 

But – and this is a very BIG but… what happens when things go wrong?   This is one of the key benefits of BT.  They are a national brand and they have shareholders.  Their customer service ought to be second to none.  And to be fair, I know from long experience that it IS pretty good. 

Before going to any of the plethora of broadband companies, they need to reassure you as to the speed and competence of their customer service.  And this assumes that something is going to go wrong.  As I am no computer geek, I only know when something is working – and my first reaction to any computer problem is to reach for the telephone.

Hmmm – I think I am now offically a geek.  I am starting to find all this techy stuff interesting!