Advice on BB for pensioners

Hi all,

I know this sort of thing is always being asked, but the offers are varying
all the time.

My in-laws want to go online, and we need some advice. I've been comparing
ISPs online, but what would you advise considering the following points?

1. Pensioners on limited income, so low cost is important.
2. Retain BT telephone service.
3. High speed not important - 512 will be fine.
4. Good easy to use telephone support VERY important.
5. No long contracts - 1 year max.
6. Multi email accounts not required.

Any advice most welcome, particularly concerning telephone support. Does
anyone have experience of Euro1Net?

TIA.

Rob Gibson.

"Rob Gibson" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:dkfhrl$7b0$(E-Mail Removed)...
Hi all,

I know this sort of thing is always being asked, but the offers are varying
all the time.

My in-laws want to go online, and we need some advice. I've been comparing
ISPs online, but what would you advise considering the following points?

1. Pensioners on limited income, so low cost is important.
2. Retain BT telephone service.
3. High speed not important - 512 will be fine.
4. Good easy to use telephone support VERY important.
5. No long contracts - 1 year max.
6. Multi email accounts not required.

Any advice most welcome, particularly concerning telephone support. Does
anyone have experience of Euro1Net?

TIA.

Rob Gibson.


========

ukonline - 1 meg speed, unlimited broadband, £25 connection fee - £9.99 per
month, BT line

Have a look at this one https://www.e7broadband.com/
George

"Rob Gibson" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:dkfhrl$7b0$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi all,
>
> I know this sort of thing is always being asked, but the offers are
> varying all the time.
>
> My in-laws want to go online, and we need some advice. I've been comparing
> ISPs online, but what would you advise considering the following points?
>
> 1. Pensioners on limited income, so low cost is important.
> 2. Retain BT telephone service.
> 3. High speed not important - 512 will be fine.
> 4. Good easy to use telephone support VERY important.
> 5. No long contracts - 1 year max.
> 6. Multi email accounts not required.
>
> Any advice most welcome, particularly concerning telephone support. Does
> anyone have experience of Euro1Net?
>
> TIA.
>
> Rob Gibson.
>

In article <dkfhrl$7b0$(E-Mail Removed)>, Rob
Gibson says...
> Hi all,
>
> I know this sort of thing is always being asked, but the offers are varying
> all the time.
>
> My in-laws want to go online, and we need some advice. I've been comparing
> ISPs online, but what would you advise considering the following points?
>
> 1. Pensioners on limited income, so low cost is important.
> 2. Retain BT telephone service.
> 3. High speed not important - 512 will be fine.
> 4. Good easy to use telephone support VERY important.
> 5. No long contracts - 1 year max.
> 6. Multi email accounts not required.
>
> Any advice most welcome, particularly concerning telephone support. Does
> anyone have experience of Euro1Net?
>
> TIA.
>
> Rob Gibson.
>
>
>
The Eclipse Home Broadband service would be suitable if they don't do
much heavy downloading. Service and support is first class, friendly and
based in Britain on a proper phone number (not premium or national
rate).

http://www.eclipse.net.uk/index.cfm?...sidentialintro

FR

On Fri, 4 Nov 2005, Rob Gibson wrote:

> 1. Pensioners on limited income, so low cost is important.
[...]
> 4. Good easy to use telephone support VERY important.

These are mutually contradictory requirements. Have you any idea of
the cost of an hour's time from a competent expert?

For low cost you could well go to Plusnet. I've had no problems with
their provisioning and service, but I've needed absolutely no
telephone support from them, so I've no experience of how bad that
might be.

A repeat of the usual advice NOT to make do with USB attachment, but
to shell out the little extra to get Ethernet attach. Even a single
Ethernet port would be adequate for their needs. That applies
whichever ADSL provider they sign up with, IMHO.

(I signed up with plusnet earlier this year, and the whole process
went smoothly, and ahead of their predicted schedule. No, I'm not
touting for referrals, I'm just stating my experience.)

Don't depend on help or support phone lines or support newsgroups.

First of all there's the difficulty of elderly novices explaining
exactly what the problem is. Jargon rather plain English rules the
roost. A new language has to be learned.

Secondly, the quality of 'helpers' is abysmal. They are
insufficiently technically trained. Their main function is just to
exist so that their existence can be included in adverts by service
providers. Enquiries are liable to end up with advice to reformat your
hard drive with uneccessary, hopeless instructions on how to do it.

Elderly people will need younger relatives to assist with problems
which are sure to occur. 75 percent of problems are due to
unreliability of the service provided. It is important to be able to
recognise at which end of the system a problem has arisen.

Novices are initially helpless. How to use the keyboard is the least
of their problems. Elderly novices, no matter how intelligent in the
past, are inevitably slow to catch onto new ideas, a new language. A
new language is best learned between the ages of 5 and 15.

Helpers need to be patient and have time to spare. Before the elderly
get fed up and forget all about the idea.

I am 80 years of age myself. I am very familiar with the uses of
computers. I have been on the Internet for about 10 years. But when
an unusual Internet problem arises I am still obliged to wait until my
'expert', 18-year old grandson turns up. His mother is quite good
too!

Self-introduction to computing, especially introduction to the
Internet, turned out to be the best thing I ever did.

I trust you will find these meandering comments to be encouraging with
your project. Get on with it!
----
Reg.

> 4. Good easy to use telephone support VERY important.

Throw VNC on their machine, and when they hit a problem, a quick call
to you will save you visiting...

--
Please add the word "newsgroup" in the subject line of personal emails
**** My email address includes "ngspamtrap" and "@btinternet.com" ****

On 04 Nov 2005 11:55 GMT, "Makara@Starfleet" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>ukonline - 1 meg speed, unlimited broadband, £25 connection fee - £9.99 per
>month, BT line

only available to about 4.5 million homes, so no guarantee they serve the area
where the parents live, and some negative comments have been made (though that
might have been through customer services being overloaded with new customers,
as a side effect of the low cost account they can offer). Peter M.

"Reg Edwards" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:dkg5s7$t7g$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Don't depend on help or support phone lines or support newsgroups.
>
> First of all there's the difficulty of elderly novices explaining
> exactly what the problem is. Jargon rather plain English rules the
> roost. A new language has to be learned.
>
> Secondly, the quality of 'helpers' is abysmal. They are
> insufficiently technically trained. Their main function is just to
> exist so that their existence can be included in adverts by service
> providers. Enquiries are liable to end up with advice to reformat your
> hard drive with uneccessary, hopeless instructions on how to do it.
>
> Elderly people will need younger relatives to assist with problems
> which are sure to occur. 75 percent of problems are due to
> unreliability of the service provided. It is important to be able to
> recognise at which end of the system a problem has arisen.
>
> Novices are initially helpless. How to use the keyboard is the least
> of their problems. Elderly novices, no matter how intelligent in the
> past, are inevitably slow to catch onto new ideas, a new language. A
> new language is best learned between the ages of 5 and 15.
>
> Helpers need to be patient and have time to spare. Before the elderly
> get fed up and forget all about the idea.
>
> I am 80 years of age myself. I am very familiar with the uses of
> computers. I have been on the Internet for about 10 years. But when
> an unusual Internet problem arises I am still obliged to wait until my
> 'expert', 18-year old grandson turns up. His mother is quite good
> too!
>
> Self-introduction to computing, especially introduction to the
> Internet, turned out to be the best thing I ever did.
>
> I trust you will find these meandering comments to be encouraging with
> your project. Get on with it!
> ----
> Reg.
>
>
Ignore this idiot, he's basically got no idea what he doing. He blames
everyone but himself for his weaknesses, if anyones a BT broadband/
Yahoo/Connect subscriber then they can look at the BT newsgroups
to highlight this. He also cant tell the different between other users
offering
him support and BT Support (who post will the name Internet Services from
BT) and also put Internet Services from BT, Newsgroup Support at the
bottom of their posting. And well if you have the same name as a support
person then forget it, REG if you read this theres more than ONE Andy.

Andrew

On 4 Nov 2005 22:43, Colin Wilson <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Throw VNC on their machine,

or possibly use www.logmein.com (assuming Win XP is available) as that can
also cope with dynamic IP, needs no port forwarding on the router, and is
free for home (/restricted) use. Makes it easy to connect without need
for finding out their IP first... Encrypted connection, too :-) Peter


--

UK ADSL <http://tinyurl.com/dghgq> - Happy to save cash with Plus.Net!

Unsuitable for heavy downloaders, but fine for video/audio streaming.