Communication breakdown

As we continue to jet around the world (the western Canadian components anyway) the subject of communication – in all its myriad forms – floats unbidden into my mind. There are understandably pertinent reasons for this upon which I will pontificate shortly – but first I feel moved to offer an update on the persisting saga of the UK national carrier – British Telecom (BT) – and our domestic telephone connection, which discourse I commenced here.

Subsequent to my rant BT posted on their fault log a proposed fix time for the line of 17:00 hours on the day before we were due to leave the UK for Canada. As nothing at all had happened during the few days prior to that deadline I guessed that they were not going to achieve their target. Sure enough they contacted me during the final afternoon and told me that an engineer would need to pay a visit to our apartment, and that we should thus make an appointment for them so to do. I protested that the fault was clearly in the network rather than at our end but that cut no ice. BT further demanded that I carry out various tests on our domestic equipment before booking the visit, apparently so that they could charge me large sums of money should the fault prove not to be in their domain.

I pointed out that we were about to leave for Canada, not to return until January 7th. BT told me that they could not book further ahead than January 6th. Doh! We left it that I would book something online from BC.

The next morning – as we awaited our cab to take us to the airport – the doorbell rang. It was a BT engineer!

Needless to say I was obliged – cursing under my breath – to send him away…

Since our arrival in Canada I have struggled to stay in touch with the outside world and, indeed, to keep up my postings to this blog. We are carrying with us a laptop, two iPads (one belonging to the School), an iPhone and my Galaxy Note. All of these can easily be connected to the InterWebNet and once upon a time we would happily have freeloaded our way around the globe, pirating unsecured wireless networks at every stop. Sadly – for us – the rest of the connected world is no longer quite as cavalier when it comes to network security and we now struggle to find an open connection of which we can take advantage.

We are now staying with our wonderful friends in Saanichton at their smallholding. The good news for them is that they have expanded their business and built a new office further down their acreage. The bad news for us is that their broadband circuit is now in the new location and thus not accessible from the house. I can no longer scribble these posts lying in bed as once I could.

For the rest of the time it is a case of visiting coffee shops and other hostelries and utilising their free wireless services – assuming that one can connect – which is far from always being the case.

The message that I take from all of this is – you will not be surprised to hear – that we now live in a world in which many of us feel stripped naked if we do not have high speed access to the InterWebNet. I can’t quite work out if this is a bad thing or not and that will doubtless be the subject of much further musing in future posts.

In any case it is now time to wish all gentle readers the very happiest of Christmases and to sign off.

Peace! Stay safe. Enjoy!!