A Slight Delay

06-10-2009

Right, yesterday I did indicate that we might be having two chronicles up online for you to read. Sadly this is not the case. I lied to you all, for this I am sorry, but there are very good reasons for this.

Reason number one is that the internet wasn't installed into the house yesterday as had been the plan. More on that in a bit (as in why NTL are a shower of idiots).

See there is this thing in Ireland these days (and possibly elsewhere) where developers like to give each other brown envelopes filled with cash to get deals done. One such deal is the installation of network wires into a building of apartments.

Out in my old place this was done by a crowd that knew what they were doing. They had fibre optics going to every apartment, every room, and an excellent service.

In the new place...not so much.

I don't know, but when the only company that can provide a broadband/t.v. combo has a website that looks like this it doesn't exactly fill me with confidence as to the service they provide.

Mainly because the website looks like somebody got sick on the internet and then decided to save that as a page.

This is a dreadful website, just awful.

But it gets worse. Since these are the only people that provide the combo package we are stuck with using them if we want broadband and t.v. (or at least possibly, I am looking into another option). A quick google for customer satisfaction on this "company" reveals even less joy. Internet speeds not even near what they claim to charge you for, flakey television at best, a customer service that doesn't know what the hell it is being asked.

Just about everything about this company makes me NOT want to trust them with my money on a monthly basis.

But because this is Ireland, land of the thousand brown envelopes to developers, we might be stuck with it for a bit. We shall see.

But the reason NTL is getting thrown into this rant? We rang NTL to order their package and were told by the person on the phone, after finally getting them to find the address in the system, that they could give us broadband and telly and would be out on Monday between 9 and 1.

See, this is a problem with NTL, they treat you like shit when it is your time. The second I heard that arrival time I knew that the earliest they would be out would be 12:59. As it turns out the lady friend, who had taken the day off for this little meeting, had plans that meant she needed to leave at 1. She ended up ringing NTL at a little after 12 and suddenly they had a van in the area ten minutes later.

A friend of mine once found out that if you are returning something to NTL, such as the set top box, they tell you they will be out between 10 and 2 and you can damn well be sure that when the doorbell rings at 9:30 that it is them.

I don't know, but that doesn't seem like a great way to run a company to me.

Anyway, bottom line of the rant is that the chronicles will have to wait a little longer.

But they will be uploaded at some point.

This year.

Hopefully.

Blue_jester