Pink Connect Blog

Posts Tagged ‘BT’

Andy Moore (Pink Connect Bristol) has words of encouragement for us all – especially on these dark, cold mornings:

“I have been networking like mad over the last 3 weeks. Last week I did 4 consecutive morning meetings!  By the last one I was ready to turn the alarm off, roll over and go back to sleep.

However as I was substituting at a different BNI group I had to be there and I am glad I made the effort.

I had only been there a few minutes when the owner of a local business asked me if I could help her sort out her telecoms.  Obviously I was happy to do this & within an hour of arriving back at my office I received a call asking for an appointment on Monday.

On Monday I got hold of copies of all of their phone bills and made further enquiries with the incumbent supplier including getting a £300 overcharge credited back!

We are now going to provide her with 2 broadband connections and 5 lines.

I am so glad that I dragged myself out of bed because you just never know who might be wanting our services. Bring on those morning sessions!”

Editor’s note: The phrase “the early bird catches the worm” means success comes to those who prepare well and put in effort. It was first recorded in John Ray’s A collection of English proverbs 1670, 1678: “The early bird catcheth the worm.”

In a world of so much choice, the tools allowing us to make those choices are important.  One of the biggest decisions for a business in recent times has always been ‘internet’.  The internet is a complicated infrastructure, with thousands of service providers and hosting companies, all doing their bit to expand the internet and to provide others with the tools and information to do their job.  With almost all companies using the internet to some degree, it is important that as a service provider, Pink Connect Ltd gives their customers the best connection for what they need, and that our customers know exactly what they are going to get, and what other choices are available to them through our useful broadband package system.  For this task, some special tools are needed, and the most useful of these are the websites allowing us to supply information regarding internet connections to a customer, before they order it.

SamKnows is one of the most popular ADSL resource sites on the internet, providing a lot of useful information about specific connections, about exchanges, or about ADSL as a whole.  Their most useful feature for us is the Broadband Checker, which will allow us to estimate the download speeds on most connections before we install them.  The checker is very simple to use, just enter a telephone number, or postcode, or both and get information regarding that connection/postcode.  You will get a set of results, which you can browse through with the tabs down the left hand side of the central box, but the most useful of these is the “BT ADSL” tab, which will bring up a result like this.

This page will give you information on the specific line, such as whether ADSL is actually enabled at the local exchange, whether it is enabled for further services, such as ADSL Max, ADSL2+ and 21CN.  It will also tell us the speeds to be expected on the line.  All of these are important to learn as much as possible about the line, and let the customer know what to expect from their connection.  Another useful tab, is the “BT 21CN” tab, which will give details of BT’s new 21^st Century Network infrastructure.  The postcode search works in the same way, but the results tend to be less accurate as a postcode can cover a reasonable area.

Also included in the SamKnows website, is the Exchange Search, which will allow you to find the local exchange of any town.  This will also give you details such as which services are available at the exchange, and also which ISPs currently operate from this exchange.

BT to raise call charges by 10%
Telecoms giant BT has said it will increase call charges by 10% and its monthly line rental by 50p from the beginning of October.
The majority of customers will be informed of the move by letter this week. The cost of connecting a call will go up from 9.9 pence to 10.9p, while the daytime rate rises from 5.9p to 6.4p. Customers who sign up to a year-long contract upfront will avoid the increased charges. BT said it estimates the impact of the changes will be just 1p a day, because its average customer makes only 80 seconds of daytime calls each day, and more than half subscribe to inclusive packages.
It said “calling plans enable customers to avoid the set-up fee and charges for most calls altogether”.