A friend of mine works in Tech Support for BT. He gets a lot of consumer support calls for broadband. This brief transcript is of one of his calls recently:
Customer: I can’t get my wireless to work
Tech Support: Is your wireless light on the hub holding colour or not?
Customer:I don’t know it’s next door
Tech Support: Oh right could you go back home and check?
Customer: Oh no sorry its my neighbours hub and they are at work
Tech Support: Oh so do they know you use their internet connection?
Customer: No he told me his password once when he was drunk
Tech Support: Do you know that is illegal (long pause). Phone goes dead.
Lets hope that the “customer” hasn’t been using his neighbour’s broadband for unlawfully downloading copyrighted material. Who needs enemies eh?…
DEAct DEBill
5 replies on “BT support call highlights extent of Digital Economy Act problem #deact #debill”
haha, nice one! makes you wonder how many people are on *free* connections doesn’t it? I bet it is rife in student land.
I have been doing tech support all evening, you get such funny calls. I will start to keep a diary I think.
Latest was ‘wifi isn’t working’
Are there lights on the box?
‘ no, no lights on it’
Is it plugged in?
‘er, actually now I look the plug is crushed under the rocking chair’
Come round and get a new plug then, it won’t work if it doesn’t have power…
Nice story! Not strictly #deb related, but it reminded me of when I was doing tech support briefly in hte summer of 07 back in Bristol. Someone called in saying that their broadband connection had gone down and they didn’t know what to do.
Me: Have you tried turning off the router and turning it back on again?
Client: No. I can’t access it.
Me: How come?
Client: It’s in my comms room in the basement, which is currently flooded.
Funny times indeed!
just following up from twitter conversations generated from this post, is it legal to share your connection with half the street (either for free or charging) and if it is, do ISPs allow this? Or is there some small print that says the connection is for your own family use only?
thanks
chris
legal I believe though not sure you would want to risk it with Big Brother coming down your street quite soon
@ cyberdoyle + tref – Legal with a big BUT :
It depends on the ISP as to whether or not you can share your connection with your neighbors. Some ISPs do put a “NOT TO BE SHARED” clause in their residential contracts that isn’t there in their business contracts (naturally those cost more). Also, you need to be on the lookout for a possible usage cap. So check your contract for microdots ;-).