One week ago my o2 broadband was once again disconnecting at an alarming rate. After calling them and getting the usual “plug into the test socket and we’ll check for faults” I couldn’t help thinking last year was going to repeat itself all over again. One engineer after another scratching their head trying to work out why my service was flakier than a flaky thing, all coming to the conclusion that everything was fine and that I should take it up with o2 again.

Because I didn’t relish the thought of having no reliable service for the foreseeable future, I took the opportunity to call Virgin Media to enquire about their broadband once again in the hope that any problems that did exist in my area were fully fixed 12 months on. Friends and family have been switching to Virgin within this time and have had a superb service with them. Because I have their Large TV package with Sports collection, I can get 10MB fibre optic broadband for around £15 per month. I was able to choose self-install as I have all the cables at the back of my TV which the hub simply needs to be plugged into. This saved me £40 on an engineer.

I then received a phone call on Wednesday from an “o2 Guru” who said a fault had been discovered at my local exchange which would be fixed within 24 hours. It was 4 hours later after I arrived home after taking that call and noticed my connection had been down but was also running faster, at around 3.5meg. This, for me, is fast. So, just two days before I was due to have my 10mb fibre optic activated I found myself with a fully working o2 connection – typical. However my delight was short-lived as come Friday not only was my broadband down but also my home phone! I didn’t care too much as I’d just taken delivery of my Virgin Media Hub and my connection was up and running.

My experience second time around with Virgin Media has been wonderful. I visited all the websites I had problems with last year and there they all were, downloading in a snap. I ran a speed check and was getting 9.85meg. Fantastic. My contract with o2 Home Phone and Broadband ended in May, so I’m now fully free to move all my services to Virgin Media and will be doing so when I choose the right telephone package for me. I’ll also be upgrading to their 30MB broadband because of the bundle discount. I would be signing up as soon as possible, but the telephone installation will cost £40 plus another £30 for the Super Hub to support 30MB broadband. That can wait until my next big bill or two is safely out of the way.

Since switching to o2 Home Phone and Broadband my connection has been terrible. Really terrible. It began almost immediately from my switch-on date of May 20th. It came in the form of many disconnections initially, to much slower speeds, dropping from 3.5mbps with reliability to 1.5mbps with disconnections as often as every 30 minutes.

Many telephone conversations have taken place between myself and o2 Broadband in the last 3 months and sadly the relationship has continued to deteriorate. Within 6 weeks they send me 2 brand new routers (o2 Wireless Box II), sent me new filters, changed the noise margin on my line to see if that would provide stability and I have had no less than 3 BT telephone engineers to my home to check and repair faults. All these engineers left my property satisfied that the issue was resolved. Only it never was.

o2 Broadband told me that once they’ve run all the tests they can on my line, they will send out a Broadband Engineer, not a telephone engineer. Last week we reached the point where the tests were completed, but the last conversation I had with them was the final straw. I was told, by a lady at o2, that I would need to have 30 disconnections an HOUR before they would send an engineer to me. Yes, 30. It was clear that with my current rate of re-syncs that they just were absolutely unwilling to do anything more than fiddle with noise margins and repeatedly talk to me like an idiot, asking “are your filters plugged into your sockets?”.

So, despite still being in contract with o2 Home Phone and Broadband until May 2011, I have signed up to Virgin Media to receive their 10MB Fibre Optic cable broadband (and TV package). I will get 3 months for £15 per month for my broadband then £20 per month thereafter. This means I’ll still be paying for an o2 Broadband service that I won’t be using, from o2. It’s not ideal since I should be receiving a service that I’m paying for, but o2 have let me down really badly and have had little choice but to seek an alternative.

As many longterm readers know, I’ve been a huge advocate of o2 Broadband the entire time I’ve been writing here. I have converted many friends, online and offline, to o2. Now I am advising to avoid like the plague. When it really matters and you have a problem, their support just aren’t prepared to send the necessary engineer to resolve the issue. Their advert about nobbling broadband niggles is now laughable. And their telephone message when calling for technical support is equally so…

Did you know that many o2 broadband connection problems can be fixed by switching your broadband box on and off?

Ah if only, o2, if only.

So, after 3 years I am finally waving goodbye to DSL with o2 Broadband and when my contract expires in May I shall also be taking my home phone needs to Virgin Media. I hope that I have a better experience with Virgin Media and that support will acknowledge and deal with problems should they occur. From what I’ve been told by friends who are already with Virgin, it seems that they do technical support very well. My installation date is Saturday 11th September.

My o2 Broadband [rating:0.5/5] AVOID AVOID AVOID

Having called o2 up a couple of days ago regarding an iPhone bolt-on, I was asked if there was anything else they could assist me with. I took the opportunity to enquire into when Home Phone was being launched. The lady told me it had launched now and put me through to the correct department to discuss it. I knew I wanted to switch so just asked there and then for my details to be taken so we could get the ball rolling.

The phone call took around 20-30 minutes, discussing the package I wanted to go on, bolt-ons and my Direct Debit details. You can also buy online if you prefer. There will be no distruption to my service while the switch is being made and I’ve been kept fully updated every step of the way via regular emails and texts letting me know the process was underway and that my switch date will be 20th May.

I chose their ‘Anytime’ package which will cost £12.50 per month and have also added on the Caller Display bolt-on which is approximately £1.75 extra per month. I am thoroughly looking forward to having my telecommunications service all under one roof with o2, with home phone, broadband and iPhone. Leaving BT after all these years is going to be one happy occasion.

If you are on o2 broadband already and are looking to sign up to their Home Phone service then do drop me a line as inviting a friend will result in both of us receiving a £20 voucher to spend at Amazon.co.uk.

So, looking to save myself £10 a month, I called o2 today and switched from iPhone 30 (£30 per month) which gave me 75 mins/125 texts, to iPhone Simplicity 20 (£20 per month) which gives you…

- 300 mins
- Unlimited texts
- Unlimited data and wifi
- Visual Voicemail

The phonecall to 2302 from my iPhone took just a few minutes. Shortly after making the switch I checked Visual Voicemail on my iPhone which was showing as ‘Currently Unavailable’. I assumed that this feature wasn’t available on iPhone Simplicity until a few friends confirmed that it was. 3G was also failing on my iPhone, so I called o2 again and spoke with a girl who really confused matters.

I was told to change the network settings on my iPhone so that I could get 3G and MMS. She also repeatedly insisted that Visual Voicemail does not come with the iPhone Simplicity tariffs. However, it appears she was confusing regular Simplicity with iPhone Simplicity, so there was no need to alter any settings on my phone. I can confirm that you DO get Visual Voicemail on iPhone Simplicity and there is no need to manually change any network settings. Simply reboot your iPhone once you’ve moved to iPhone Simplicity which will bring back 3G and all your current data settings will work correctly without any amendment.

I’m absolutely delighted with this news. Being able to finally move away from BT is a dream come true, whom I pay in excess of £100 per quarter to for my home phone. With o2 I will pay just £20 per month for Home Phone *and* Broadband – a saving of £40 per quarter. They have two packages available, ‘Evening & Weekend’ for £9.50 per month and ‘Anytime’ for £12.50 per month – both package prices include line rental. I am opting for the latter as it gives me unlimited calls to UK landlines at any time. So, that together with the £7.50 per month I pay for o2 Broadband I will be paying just £20 per month. You can see details on the tariffs at this page and also register your interest, here.

Roll on March. It’s going to be a very sweet day when I can smile and wave bye bye to BT.

o2 UK have teamed up with Twitter so that come August 1st, every o2 customer will be able to turn on text notifications in Twitter to receive replies and direct messages absolutely free. Text updates to Twitter will be part of your normal text message bundle or the cost of a normal text. You can read more on this new partnership, here.

That’s great news. I don’t think I will be taking advantage of it as I receive @reply and DM notification to my iPhone through Tweetie’s Prowl/Growl integration currently and have also purchased Boxcar – Twitter Push Notifications over the weekend to give that a go.

Will you be enabling the free notifications come August 1st?

With o2 in the UK, we can downgrade our tariff after 9 months. So, last week I called o2 and downgraded to the £30 per month tariff which gets me 75 inclusive minutes, 125 texts and unlimited data. As you can see there is quite a big leap in allowance between the two tariffs for the sake of £5, but it’s better off in my pocket than o2′s. I’m sure the £30 per month tariff will be more than enough, but it’s good to know that I can upgrade again at anytime if my usage increases especially since MMS uses 4 SMS messages. I think popping back up to the £35 per month tariff may come sooner than I anticipated

Which brings me neatly to the iPhone 3GS that was released today. AT&T in the USA and o2 in the UK released their pricing and eligibility for upgrade details shortly after the Apple event at WWDC last week. Unlike July 2008 when existing iPhone 1st gen customers could upgrade to the iPhone 3G by simply signing another new 18 month contract, customers must now wait until their current contract expires before being eligible for an upgrade, or they can pay up their existing contract and then sign a new contract for the iPhone 3GS.

As the features of the iPhone 3GS were being announced at the Apple event, the improved 3MP camera and video was something I was very pleased to hear. However, since my current contract doesn’t end until March 2010 then I don’t have the eligibility to upgrade right now. However, o2 have outlined ways of getting the new device, one of which would be to pay the remainder of your monthly line rental in one payment and sign a new Pay Monthly contract. Not an attractive option for me with 9 months left, but also signing a new 18 month contract means when the next new iPhone is released next June I wouldn’t be eligible for that one, which is bound to carry even more new great features than the 3GS, plus a new design I’m betting.

The other alternative is to buy the PAYG iPhone 3GS 16GB for £440, pop in my existing pay monthly SIM and then sell my 3G. That means I own the phone outright and my contract ends next March as usual, leaving me free to get the new iPhone in Summer 2010 (and sell the 3GS). This is a far more attractive offer and very many of my online friends have opted for this so they can have the latest and greatest device today. This is the route I would likely take, should I decide to get the 3GS.

Have you bought the new iPhone 3GS today? Are you going to buy yourself out of your contract? Wait until your 18 month contract has expired? Or like me are you considering the PAYG iPhone + your existing SIM?

Something else that I wasn’t expecting to be activated so quickly was MMS by o2. I received a text message, then an MMS message from o2 shortly after applying the 3.O software update letting me know that picture messaging was ready to use. I didn’t need to do anything to get that message, it came to me automatically. I know there has been some confusion over whether a persons iPhone is set up and ready to go with MMS, but you should receive this message when you’re good to go.

o2 tweeted this evening…

Huge backlog of requests for MMS. We are working as fast as we can to process the requests and everyone should be set up within a few hours (via @o2)

I’ve sent and received several MMS this evening and although I had initially thought it would be a feature I wouldn’t use much, now I’m not so sure. It is pretty convenient for sending photos quickly to people that you know haven’t got regular access to their e-mail accounts – or an e-mail account at all!

UPDATED

I’ve had a lot of people asking how I got MMS activated on my iPhone so quickly. To my knowledge I didn’t do anything. However, I know that I did activate Find My iPhone on my phone which may be purely coincidental (settings > mail, contacts, calendars > clicked on my MobileMe account > switched on Find My iPhone). Then I logged into me.com and clicked ‘Find My iPhone’ which located my phone. It wasn’t long after that when o2 sent me confirmation that MMS was activated.

Now, that may or may not play any part in activation, but worth a try if you still haven’t been set-up. I would recommend a call to o2 if you are still waiting for activation, just so they can investigate. There have been no further updates from o2 on twitter.

Another update: Twitter friend Sam received text from o2 stating…

“We know you’re waiting for MMS activation; you should be set up in a few hours”.

More of my twitter friends are reporting having received this message now. Hope everyone will be firing on all MMS cylinders by this evening

During my 12 months with o2 Broadband I have been asked about the service and reliability from a lot of people who wanted to jump ship from their current ISP. Given that o2 is a broadband newcomer at barely 12 months old itself (I joined a week after it was introduced) people were naturally curious about whether it could deliver the goods given it’s low price (£7.50 per month to existing Pay Monthly and PAYG customers for the Standard 8MB unlimited package). So, after 12 months I thought I could give my thoughts and opinions.

I can’t fault o2 Broadband at all. It certainly hasn’t experienced any teething troubles. In 12 months the only time I can remember a significant downtime was earlier in the year when service was down for a few hours. I called customer support and after getting through extremely quickly I didn’t even have to explain what the issue was – they already knew and assured me they were working on it. This isn’t customer support I’m used to. My experiences with BT Broadband were abysmal and the support would have liked me to think the issue was with my own computer – yeeees, my computer was causing the broadband to be completely out at the exchange

In the past year I have recommended o2 to a good few people – some joined, some didn’t. Those who didn’t decided to stay with their current ISP after they were promised better speeds, but are now mostly regretting their decision because their service has continued to decline. Of those that did join on my recommendation, the last time I spoke to some of them they’d just been turned on by o2 and were thrilled to be whizzing through the intertubes at a vast rate. To avoid repeating what I’ve already said, you can read my other posts on o2 Broadband here and here. Everything still stands.

So, to briefly sum things up…

Reliability of Service: I have had no connection issues. I get around 3Mbps which is double the speed I got with BT (which I was paying three times more for, incidentally). Unfortunately my line isn’t capable of much more than that and it does the job, until all the horrid old copper lines are finally replaced with fancy new ones by British Telecom!

Customer Support: Excellent, 10/10, outstanding…you get the idea. Call Centres based in the UK, swift answer, friendly, speedy resolution of any issues since they have full control of my o2 Wireless Box from their end. Brilliant support for Mac users. Faultless.

Router: I have the “old” o2 wireless box, a Thomson 780. I call it the ugly one since the new ones are smaller and white – much prettier. But, I haven’t had any problems with this and the Admin interface is very user-friendly and detailed.

If you’re thinking of switching to o2 Broadband and have any queries that I haven’t already covered then shoot me a question in the comments

Since buying the iPhone last week I’ve been asked a few questions by people who are considering purchasing but want to know my thoughts on it. I thought the best way to answer these was to put together a collection of these questions along with my answers so I can point them in this direction and hope that my experience and opinions will help them make up their minds.

What’s so different, physically, about the iPhone compared to the iPod touch?
I had never played with an iPhone before but I always expected it was very physically like an iPod touch, only with more features. I didn’t expect the feel of it to be that much different to the ‘touch’. However, I couldn’t ignore some of the things I’d read in Mac magazines over the past year where the article writer would remark how the screen had more clarity on the iPhone and just felt so very different to the iPod touch. I wanted to cover my eyes when I read that as I wanted to believe that the iPod touch was an iPhone without the ‘extras’. But, it most definitely is not just an iPod touch with more features. It’s probably the hardest thing to put into words, but when you hold one and use it then you can feel and see the quality of this. It feels much more robust than an iPod touch.

Why did you go for the 8GB and not the 16GB?
This is just a personal preference, I guess. I’ve never been into listening to music on a portable device and had very few songs on my iPod touch. I have even fewer on my iPhone – 0 to be precise and the earbuds are still wrapped up and untouched in the box! My iPhone will most definitely primarily be a phone to me, aswell as a web browsing/e-mail device and a camera. I don’t have the need for a huge amount of space for music/videos but if you listen to music on the move and like to carry your library around with you then 16GB is probably for you.

Do you wish you’d bought one earlier?
In all honesty, no I don’t. I think I picked a great time to buy when the iPhone software update 2.1 was a mere 24 hours away. I’ve been reading the many comments on how the iPhone was prone to dropped calls, huge back-up and sync times, aswell as causing people to completely restore it on more than one occasion. Those are the very reasons I held off as long as I did. I wanted my first iPhone experience to be as smooth as my Mac experiences and this didn’t disappoint.

What is the battery life like?
On Thursday before the 2.1 update arrived I noticed my battery falling after hardly extreme usage. On Friday when I installed 2.1 I noticed a significant improvement. I made a good few calls, sent text messages, checked e-mail, took photos and generally played around with it and the battery indicator was still on full.

Is 3G signal strong?
This will all depend on your location, but every time I’ve been out and about I have been pretty much on the full 5 bars. At home I have full 3G signal. I first put 3G to good use on Saturday evening when my o2 Broadband was briefly unavailable. The iPhone couldn’t have come at a better time.

What are the back-up and sync times like?
Astonishingly quick. Last night was my first back-up and sync since 2.1 on Friday. I had a few new apps to install and some new photos to sync. The entire back-up and sync process took less than 60 seconds. At first I thought it must have only transferred the photos and not bothered with the apps, but it had. The iPod touch used to take well over half an hour to complete this process, bearing in mind that I was using only approximately 2GB space on an 8GB device.

What’s your favourite iPhone feature?
One of the things I’ve done more than making phonecalls is send SMS messages. I don’t send hundreds per month but it’s often the easiest and most discreet way of contacting friends and family who aren’t in a place that they can hold a voice conversation. And I have to say SMS on the iPhone is just so incredibly pleasurable. I love the iChat look and sound. The way the conversations are laid out makes so much more sense than the way I’ve used text messaging on my past phones. I can see myself sending a lot more texts with the iPhone but I think I’d have to really push myself to get anywhere near the 500 inclusive texts on my £35 per month package.

Of course, I can’t just pick one feature. I also love having a camera on my phone that takes decent quality pictures. GPS is so much fun aswell. I tried this out over the weekend when I was out in the car (I wasn’t driving). I was so blown away by it’s speed at locating me after opening Google Maps and it’s accuracy throughout my journey. I didn’t need to find directions to a particular place but that’s the next thing I intend to throw at it to see whether it gets me to my destination in one piece.

Should I get MobileMe when I buy an iPhone?
If you want an e-mail address and much more that you can access on your iPhone, on your computer(s) and on any computer wherever you are then yes, definitely. I wasn’t an old .Mac subscriber but the features in MobileMe were just what I needed. When you have a couple of Macs and an iPhone (or iPod touch) then you want to have all your data on each, as up to date as possible without docking and syncing. MobileMe does this beautifully over “the cloud”. Gone are the days of docking for one piece of new data. I think £59 per year is well worth it. Aside from it being great for the iPhone I also love how my Safari bookmarks are synced across my iMac and PowerBook. That makes life so much easier and is the ideal accompaniment to the iPhone.

Is the iPhone 3G Dock worth the money?
£19 may sound a lot for a little chunk of plastic, but it’s a beautiful bed for the iPhone. It slides in so smooth. It would have been nice for the dock to have been included in the box when you buy the iPhone, but I personally think it’s well worth the money.

I can’t help but be sickeningly positive about everything. The whole upgrade process with o2 was quick and pain-free. It’s the swiftest handset upgrade I’ve been through, as of course no haggling over the handset cost or tariff was necessary Delivery took less than 24 hours, getting the iPhone out of the box and set up with my SIM was speedy so I could do what I’d been so looking forward to doing and that’s have a damn good play with it.