Help no broadband......

[clare]

I am back......after 3 weeks of no broadband or landline and it was awful.I was so busy doing things the old fashioned way it was awful.Everything took longer.I had to go to the library to use the internet 3 times for urgent stuff and I even wrote to cancel something as the phone number was 0844 so would have been to expensive to call from my mobile.I ran out of internet and miutes on my mobile so for 3 days I felt very weird.I did however clean and tidy the shed,wash the greenhouse in and out,cut 3 pallets up for the fire,collected loads of branches in the woods too.I also visited a gift shop(organised before the line went down) and sold £65 of my crafts and she's ordered another £30 to be posted and wants more stuff through the summer, I am so pleased.It rather halted my folksy shop too so I am very behind with it all.Our line goes down with a fault about twice a year it seems,all the cables are underground and get crushed by farm vehicles over time so they have to replace lengths at a time and it rarely gets fixed quiker than a week and last time it was 6 weeks!!Anyone would think we live up a mountain!!!
Clare

[diggernotdreamer]

I live up a mountain, we have no proper broadband here so I have mobile broadband, it costs me 35 euro a month, if there is a bad storm it sometimes gets knocked out, so I know how you feel, I feel a little more connected to the outside world, I keep in contact with family and friends on Facebook, read the paper online and do ish and Ebay so I can buy things not available here or hard got. I also have a subscription on skype which costs me 6 euro so I can phone any landline in Europe unlimited, I can phone relatives for virtually nothing. Funny how we have come to depend on the net for so many things.

[Maykal]

At my country house I have no internet (and no TV, no indoor plumbing, no telephone except my mobile). I love it when I stay up there for a week as I get so much done. I'm sure if I had net there, I'd waste most of my time faffing about online instead of digging and building. Often I'm up there alone too (we don't have a shower installed yet, so the other half is reluctant to stay more than a weekend) and it's amazing how much I look forward to the neighbour popping in during the day for a chat and a beer. I'm sure back in a 'modern' world, I'd probably just find that intrusive and annoying. In the evenings I just sit by the fire, listen to the radio (something I never do back in town) and read a book. I know eventually, once all the work is done and we move there permanently, I'll end up getting the net installed, but in the meantime I'm enjoying my occasional 'back to basics' workations.

[Bulworthyproject]

We have mobile broadband via a dongle. It reacts badly to being in a woodland especially when the leaves on the trees are wet. It reacts even worse to being inside a caravan, so we put it in a jar in the roof.

It's not perfect, but it's better than no broadband at all.

[clare]

I am sure it is just what you get used to.I did used to live up a mountain in Tenerife,we had no landline and it was before mobile internet or dongles or wifi.We struggled to pay for our mobiles( they were expensive then in spain) Telefonica (spain's bt) said there was no possibility of a phone as it would mean at least 10 poles from our nearest neighbour who had a line and they would not do it as the spanish government made a law that no householders should have to pay for poles or cabling so their answer is because it is not financially viable for one household you can't have a line!!.We lived 18 months like this and along with other factors like no work we returned to the uk and live rurally.When I think back if I had had internet on my phone I am sure we would have been happier,but since we have the line back on we have not had so many online things to do(insurances,househunting for inlaws, )it just came at the worse time.Bt are refunding our line rental and I even got extra to cover my having to go out to use wifi and my mobile phone bill so it's worth kicking up a fuss when they repeatedly delay fixing dates.

[daz101]

Antenna tech is coming on quite fast. You could get 4 km out of this if you had line of sight to your library....
http://gadgetshow.channel5.com/gadget-s ... tubrotenna