Philip Nicosia

Yes, 6 days to go until I get my Sky broadband. I have to say I am impressed with Sky. Since signing up for broadband with them I have received 3 updates by letter, 1 by phone and my free wireless router has already arrived.

The wireless router they gave me is a Sky branded Netgear DG834GT and on opening the box it seems Sky have pre-programmed certain features and give you a network key that has been pre-installed to enter if you are using the wireless connection.

The router also came with an installation CD. I don’t think Sky are leaving anything to chance. I can’t be sure for certain but I think this CD once you are connected will handle all your router settings for you as there are no other instructions with it on how to log into your router. In fact I had to telephone Sky to ask what the username and password is. Usually it would be username “admin” and password “password” but Sky have changed the password to “Sky”.

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised when I called their Broadband Support department. After going through the usual menu system asking which department you want I was put straight through to a human being who was able to deal with my query straight away! No waiting on the phone for over an hour like some other companies.

There are a lot of broadband providers out there that should take note of that!

I just a text message from T-Mobile offering a month’s free evening and weekend texts to UK mobiles if I top up my pay as you go card by £10 or more in a single top up. I think it is only for new customers who have ordered a sim card online as I don’t see the offer on their website.

They point to the terms at T-Mobile.co.uk/freetexts which headlines “Unlimited Free evening and weekend texts for life – Web exclusive!”.

In line with other unlimited offers it isn’t actually unlimited and subject to a fair usage policy of 3000 texts per month. Still a good deal but why say “Unlimited” when there is a limit. Perhaps these marketing people should consult a dictionary to see what “Unlimited” means.

If you continue to top up your phone with a minimum top up of £10 each month then you get free texts for the next month.

When I got my sim card from them last week it cost just 50p. Now I see they are giving them away for free so if you’re a bit of a text junkie and you’re on a pay as you go scheme it may be worth looking into.

Well I think I’ve seen it all now. Petsmobility have launched a Mobile Phone for your Dog!

As ridiculous as this may sound its actually a pretty good idea. Especially if you have a pet with a tendency to run off on its own.

The PetsCell not only allows you to call your dog if it gets lost but also allows anyone who finds it to call you. Coupled with GPS navigation you can also track online where your dog is and setup a Geo-Fence around a certain area and get notified if your dog leaves this specific area.

It could be said as a responsible pet owner you shouldn’t let your dog wander off unattended and I for one would agree with that sentiment but it could be useful if you have taken your dog for a walk off its lead and if it runs off at least you will be able to find them easier enough.

I guess the next step would be to somehow miniaturize this for use with cats. That I could see as being a good use of the technology as cats are always wandering off sometimes for hours on end. At least with one of these you’d know where it was.

Only problem is you’d have to move to America for it to work!

Well it seams that my love affair with PlusNet didn’t last long. When they connected me it was at my old speed of 1Mb instead of the 8Mb that I had ordered. Bearing in mind that I had paid upfront £14.99 when I originally ordered it to have the speed upgraded to 8Mb I assumed that would have been carried out at the time of migrating.

Trying to get an answer from them was frustrating to say the least. Sales didn’t want to know now that I had placed my order and put me into the queue for customer support. This is where I got the recorded message saying “Your call will be answered in ……… excess of 1 hour”. 1 hour! I’ve got better things to do with my time than hang on a phone being charged for more than an hour.

So I decided to use their online help system. Luckily I did have an internet connection but imagine if you didn’t then your only option would have been to wait in excess of an hour to speak to someone. So I filled out my request for support which meant going through their menu system none of which really applied to my situation to get a reply telling me the average time of response is 17+ hours. I was fuming. How can a company expect to survive in these competitive times with response times like these?

Out of the blue I received an email from Sky saying they could now supply me with broadband. I telephoned them to ask what packages were available in my area and decided to go with their Sky Mid package which is up to 8Mb download speed with a 40GB monthly usage for £5.00 a month. I wanted Sky Max with the 16Mb speed but that’s not available for me yet. I have to say I was impressed with their sales staff. They gave me all the details I needed to make a decision and even told me that what speed I could expect from their service after doing a quick line check which turns out to be 4Mb.

I contacted PlusNet and told them I wasn’t comfortable with their after sales service and asked for my MAC code so I could migrate to Sky. In fairness to PlusNet they didn’t argue the point and supplied me with a MAC in a matter of hours.

I rang the MAC code through to Sky and the next day Sky Broadband contacted me by telephone to tell me my activation date for their Sky Mid Broadband package has been set for 19th September. They are also sending me out a free wireless router to use with their broadband. That’s someting that PlusNet don’t offer and Sky’s service is almost a third of the price too.

So its goodbye to PlusNet and hello to Sky Broadband.

Our Government may think they are big on Human Rights but like anything in life there is one rule for one and one rule for another.

When dealing with government departments such as the Inland Revenue your rights go out of the window. Supposedly there our safeguards put in place to stop the Inland Revenue from over exerting their powers and indeed if they request information from you that they are not entitled to under their Code of Practice they have to go to an independent Commissioner for approval of their request.

This is where the whole situation becomes laughable. You are not allowed to represent yourself to the Commissioner but can send in a letter that has to go to the Inland Revenue for them to pass on. Basically any defence you have is landed in the hands of the very people that are out to get you. This wouldn’t be so bad apart from the fact it is one sided. In fact the Inland Revenue are not obliged to let you know what they are going to say and what they actually said. Where is the fairness?

Conceivably it is possible for the Inland Revenue to make accusations against you that are completed unfounded and untrue and generally just make things up as they go alone. You’ll never know so what’s to stop them?

If someone accuses you of something and decides to take you to court if you are found not guilty then it is up to the prosecutors to pay your defence costs. Not so with the Inland Revenue. Their charter allows them to waste as much or your time and money as they wish. In their eyes, you are guilty until you can prove yourself innocent and its up to you to pay any of your own costs. Essentially you are already contributing to their costs out of the tax that you pay anyway. This allows them to be incompetent, inefficient and answerable to nobody.

How is that fair?