Because geek is cool and clever

Is the affair over before it even began? February 17, 2009

Somewhere lurking in a dark corner of this net we call ‘Inter’ is my venom-enraged report on the experiences I one encountered with NTL and their cable modem service. They managed to provide me with a level of service that was so breathtakingly inept it will stay with me until my dying day.

But those days have followed NTL into oblivion – or so I believed. NTL were purchased lock, stock and smirking barrel by VirginMedia. When you Google VirginMedia you find all sorts of horror stories about their crapness but that’s probably the same about most companies on internet forums, right?

Add to that the fact that VirginMedia has a 100% monopoly of cable in this country and the fact that I need cable if I’m to attain better internet connection speeds than the paltry offering from my ADSL line, it’s embrace VM or move to Sweden.

Despite being rather partial to the odd spot of gravalax, I’m not quite ready to turn Scandanavian so last week I went against all my better instincts and signed up to Virgin.

They immediately told me that they couldn’t install my line on the date I’d asked for and instead promised February 17th which, by a swift glance at the calendar, turns out to be today.

So, at almost 7pm am I now sitting enjoying 20Mb connection speeds on my new line?

Am I buggery.

The gits didn’t show up. At 5.30 I called and asked ‘que passa?’ I was told that the engineers had rescheduled the installation to NEXT WEDNESDAY. Not only that but they weren’t even prepared to guarantee that date, suggesting that I phone them a day before and make sure we were still on. What about them phoning me!

I lost the plot with the woman on the phone and told her to cancel the whole thing before putting the phone down.

Half an hour later I called back, spoke to the same woman and reinstated the installation. I’ve now got to wait another bloody week. Argh!