Our Saviour!

As you may have read over the last few blips, we have had problems with our BT connection. At first there was a big problem with broadband throughout Orkney, and it coincided with one technician being on leave and the other not being available, so it took a couple of days to sort.

Since then our connection has been intermittent. Sometimes the phone worked but not the internet, sometimes the internet worked until the phone was used and then it dropped the signal. Then the broadband symbol on the hub lit up only when the phone was in use . . . For the last week we have had a hellish noise on the line, so that it has been impossible to hear even the dialling tone, which was sometimes there and sometimes not. Annoyingly, folk ringing us couldn't hear it, but it was deafening at our end!

Today the chap from BT Openreach came out to have a look. We'd been warned that if the problem was found to be in the house, there would be a £99 + charge, so we'd checked and rechecked everything we could beforehand! He'd hardly been in the house for 5 minutes, before he could tell the fault was 30 metres away, i.e. at the telegraph pole. Out with his ladders he went, climbed up and found the corroded cable.

As with so much metal work in Orkney, the sea air was to blame! I did wonder if the family of young hooded crows who have spent the last month or so doing their flying training up there had anything to do with it, but although there was a large pile of guano on the top of the pole, the engineer didn't think so!

So, three cheers for the man from BT! I told him about the problems we'd had trying to explain the situation to the folk in Bombay on the "helpline" and he said he had to go through them too, and at night any emergencies he had were dealt with by folk in America.

He also said he had difficulty finding the house because it's not on his database. I wondered if it was because we had changed the name of it recently, but no - it wasn't that, it may have been built in 1840 but isn't on the BT database yet! Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that we have a dodgy signal. Strangely though, they do know where to send the bills!