The WhiteHack Blog

So It’s been five days now and our broadband is still slower than dialup.

Sky are due to change our line on the 16th, and we are looking forward to it.

The funny thing is that we have just had a call from Tiscali.

The representative started with: “I understand you hav requested a MAC code, have we done something to offend you?”

Well, firstly MAC stands for Migration Access Code, so its not a MAC code, in the same way as you it’s not a PIN number it’s the same as saying personal identifaction number number, so migration access code code is wrong.

But I digress and was not about to let semantics stand in the way of me voicing my dissatisfaction with Tiscali/Talk Talk.

I explained that the speed was slower than dial-up, and basically unusable.

“That’s because you don’t have the new TalkTalk router which will give you 7 megabits”.

7 Megabits is slower than we were on previously, and (knowing a little about networking) a new router would not change anything. I explained to the guy that only a new user name and password would have any effect on our line at a hardware level (in my home). We have an internet connection, so we know that:

A: My router works
B: The username and password works
C: My internet line is working – there is a connection to the outside world, but bandwidth is being throttled
D: TalkTalk talk bollocks and their staff know fuck-all

At this point the gent on the other end of the phone said “er, Thank you very much” and hung up.

The problem is fairly evident, this is nothing but a ploy by TalkTalk to get users whose original Tiscali contract has ended, and who have not signed up to a TalkTalk package to take a contract with TalkTalk.

The only cause for this slowness has got to be bandwidth throttling by TalkTalk. The line works, my account works, my router works, just TalkTalk have some very dubious methods of trying to gain customers.

So where does that leave the user, well if your contract with Tiscali has expired, you are up shit creek as TalkTalk have no obligation to you, and can do what ever the fuck they like, which is basically taking a crap on you.

It’s very easy to switch ISPs, check this out from MacCode.org.uk.

For a good comparison of broadband providers check this out.

Remember, you don’t have to be forced to take out a new contract with a company like TalkTalk.

I was never sure it was a good move switching from BT to Tiscali. It was a move based on price and nothing else, and I knew that Tiscali’s support service was pretty bad.

But we could save over £100 a year, so it seemed like a good trade off.
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On Wednesday night I charged my iPhone, I knew that I was probably going to be using it heavily on thursday (chasing people to fix our kitchen after a slight chip pan incident). On Thursday I made the calls (only a couple – not as many as I thought I would be making), checked my email over a 3G connection a couple of times, and sent one text message.

At some point in the afternoon it died a death.
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I have been looking forward to this weekend for a number of reasons.
Firstly was the MCSE upgrade exam (to 2008), secondly we picked up the wedding rings, thirdly I was going to upgrade my iPhone software.

The exam went well, I passed with flying colours (that’s another three qualifications now!), the rings look lovelly, and I did not want to take mine off yesterday – well, I had to wear it a little bit didn’t I? And all the software needed to upgrade, jailbreak and unlock my iPhone.

I woke up early on saturday, and with about an hour and a half to spare decided to try and do the iPhone first.
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Summer (possibly 12th June according to the rumours) will herald version 3 for the iPhone, now packing the much missed ability to cut and paste and MMS (I mean, come on, these things really are basic functionality for any phone), it will also offer emails in landscape, and background tasks.

Battery life is also expected to be improved, as well as a ’shake to cancel’ function.

All very nice, but yellowsn0w does not yet work on the v3.0 update, though the Dev-Team are working on this, until they get working fix for the new software, I won’t be upgrading.