Speed Freak!

Too good to be true?

Every now and then the old adage about it sounding too good to be true is proved wrong. Ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you I am the last person to listen to cold-call salesmen (Sorry; Sales-person!) or react to e-mails purporting to be telling me something "I really should know". Well, a year or so back I was caught off guard by a cold call from BT telling me I could upgrade my broadband connection to a high speed optical line. In my best not impressed-tone, I cynically made some remark about paying for something I did not really need. The voice on the other end of the telephone line, that must be commended for persevering, quoted a figure at me that was a pound and a few pennies less than is was currently paying. In a reluctant tone I agreed to take them up on their offer. At this point I was fully expecting a phone call apologising for their mistake or to hear nothing. At that time, the Broadband was downloading at about 7.5 Mbps which seemed more than fast enough to me.

A few days later, a bloke arrived, screwed yet another box onto the wall in Command Central, here at Laughton Towers (AKA the cupboard under the stairs!) A bit of rushing about to and from "The box, Mate" and he had increased the speed of the connection by several times to about 38 Mbps. And so it stayed, the bill went down and this chap was happy as Larry.

Then, at the end of last week, out of the blue, came an e-mail from those nice guys at BT offering to increase the speed of the connection for free! All I had to do was to 'Click here' so I did. It stated that I need do nothing, just wait and in a few days my connection would speed up all on its own - no man at the door, nothing. Well, to my surprise, this morning the speed had almost doubled, see below: 

Twice the speed overnight!

The original e-mail stated that the speed will increase over the next week or so to a maximum of 100Mbs but a realistic 90Mbs is more likely. To be honest it really does not need to be any faster for me. I am not into streaming HD video up or down the line, and i-player, and the like, run fine at 40Mbps. Any faster and I will receive stuff before it has been sent. I am not complaining - it is great. I just can't believe it is Free! 

Ralph.