Sunday, October 06, 2013

iPhone time

I've had my current iPhone ( a version 4) for almost 3 and a half years now, and it's showing signs of wear, tear and slowdown. It's time to upgrade, and I'm looking at an iPhone 5s. I've dallied with the idea of moving to Android, but I'm a die hard iPhone man at heart, and it complements my iPad Mini and Macbook Pro. I've got a birthday coming up to, so nows the best opportunity to get one. I don't expect one for my birthday, let's get that straight - they're a LOT of money, but a contribution in lieu of a gift wrapped present would be ideal..... Ooohh, shiny...

The need for speed

We've had broadband at Chez Statto for a few years. We had it when it was still known as ADSL. However, it's never been fast. Faster than my old dial up modem for sure, but never what you'd call zippy.  In fact today when I measured it, it was about 3.2 Mbps (if that means anything to you, on a package that's supposed to deliver me up to 8 Mbps.

So I've bitten the bullet and put in an order for Sky Fibre Broadband, with a top speed in the region of 38 Mbps (we'll see about that).

Fibre promises faster download (and upload speeds), less buffering when watching streamed content like BBC iPlayer and smoother faster video calls etc etc. Trying to video call our son in his University via Skype is a painful experience - it only works reasonably well if we both sit still and don't move a muscle!

Anyway, the point of this blog is to talk through the process and service. I'd researched what's out there. Virgin Media isn't yet supported in this area, and that really left BT and Sky. I'd looked at BT Infiniti before, and come pretty close to signing up, but didn't - the cost at the time was too high.


My current provider (BE Unlimited) has recently been taken over by Sky, so effectively I'm a Sky broadband customer now, with the official transition taking place early next year, but that would have been like for like. Already being into Sky for TV (Sky HD, multi-room) it seemed sensible to plump for them - they do the telephone stuff too, so I placed the order last night. It was a very slick and easy process online, and my confirmation email came through straight away.

I've booked for the 22nd Oct, a morning installation, and so will look forward to updating you on what happens on that day.

This morning I had an email from BE (with the Sky company footer), saying "It looks like something has gone wrong, BT have told us there's a cease date on your line for 22nd Oct". Clearly BE and Sky aren't quite joined up yet!

As an aside, I suppose I should consider shares in Sky. They get a fair whack off me already for TV, and now I can chuck in broadband and line rental. However, I won't be paying BE or BT, so on balance it's a coupe of quid cheaper for a (potentially) much faster broadband service). Lets wait and see.