Snipped

I don't know if Zen will leave you to decide what you want to watch but I have
heard really good things about them. I can't imagine anyone going back to BT or
Talk Talk unless it is for reasons of security and pricing. It would be like
going back to motorcycling from running a car. No not a real motorbike, one of
those little step-throughs. And not just a car either; a large engined people
carrier... with red stripes along the sides.


Zen are a very good ISP and we use them elsewhere. However they use BT
cables and plant so if your BB speed is slow then Zen won't make it any
better. However their customer service is one of the best around so in
that respect can't fault them.

FWIW we can get Fibre here now but due to distance limitations it will
only be the 38 meg service so no improvement for us, the up on VM is
still slower but we don't find that a problem.

However..

I know some people out in the sticks who'd Kill to get their service I
know of one at the moment 400 odd K on a good day thats if it doesn't
drop out and no prospect an anything better for a long time to come
yet;!..
--
Tony Sayer

On Wednesday, 10 September 2014 19:15:09 UTC+1, GMM wrote:


I'm aware this sounds pretty poorly informed but my googling doesn't
seem to bring up much useful info, surprisingly, so I would be grateful
for any informed views.

If you have broadband you can arrange to use a variety of skype type aternatives to a phoneline but having the phone with the BB is just as cheap or cheaper plus of course your call costs -skype is free as are the Linux and other versions.

You can find online movies for free if free to air isn't good enough though why a human being would want to watch TV is beyond me. If I was interested enough in sports I would prefer to watch it in a pub if the alternative is paying Rupert Murdoch or whoever for their monopoly.

(How the hell the BBC/National Govt let that happen is beyond me. And I would withdraw my approval of any sport/team that went along with it. But that is a matter of politics and religion.)

You can get Netflix if that will light your fire. Never tried it after realising they don't do Linux. (To hear them explain it, it is all the fault of all the free developers at Linux not supporting them. That put me off. Well it would wouldn't it. Some Asian from who knows where telling me a load of ****...)

Virgin are not Comcast, not AOL and not Time Warner. The US has a problem with what is sees as society and their governments are much worse than ours in every respect.

"Weatherlawyer" wrote in message
...
Virgin are not Comcast, not AOL and not Time Warner.

Nope. They're currently owned by Liberty Global whose HQ is in
NYC USA.

Branson's main remaining interest is in skimming off his licence
fee for the use of his brand name. As even nowadays, as for the
past 40 years, the punters still don't realise that a grinning
bearded buffoon (as if), dressed in jeans and a jumper and self
proclaimed peoples' friend, is happily ripping them off just as
much, if not more so, than the "bad guys" in suits


michael adams

....

In article , michael adams
scribeth thus

"Weatherlawyer" wrote in message
...
Virgin are not Comcast, not AOL and not Time Warner.

Nope. They're currently owned by Liberty Global whose HQ is in
NYC USA.

Branson's main remaining interest is in skimming off his licence
fee for the use of his brand name. As even nowadays, as for the
past 40 years, the punters still don't realise that a grinning
bearded buffoon (as if), dressed in jeans and a jumper and self
proclaimed peoples' friend, is happily ripping them off just as
much, if not more so, than the "bad guys" in suits


Yep but he's got more money that thee and me and us lot put together.

You can't blame sharks for what they are or what they do;!.

--
Tony Sayer

On 2014-09-10, GMM wrote:

We've been offline for a bit because of (yet another) failure of the BT
infrastructure, so I've been thinking about switching it all to VM.
Probably no significant cost saving, but an outside chance of a more
reliable service since the network is significantly newer than BT's.

At present, we have a master socket in the living room and an extension
on the first floor landing, where the wireless router and the DECT
basestation live. This works well enough to give fair wifi coverage
around the house (which is bigger than normal), so I'd like to keep this
configuration.

The question is, how to VM 'wire' the house? Although their web pages
re-assure customers that they will do a good job, I can't help being a
little sceptical about this and it would probably make sense to do some
enabling work before their installer gets anywhere near the place.
....

We've had VM broadband for over 10 years. Customer service is
mediocre, but the connection is good most of the time (very few
interruptions). Our house already had cable TV & phone when we moved
in, so the broadband installer put some kind of T between the incoming
cable & the TV & phone sockets, & ran an additional internet cable
from the T up the front wall of the house, tucked it into a gap in the
eaves, & screwed a box to one of the joists in the accessible but only
slightly finished storage area in the attic. He connected another
coax to the output of that & ran it through the plaster wall to the
cable modem. I was satisfied with the neatness of the installation
but I think the arrangement of our house & where we wanted the CM made
it easy.