chrishansenhome

...and O2 is really good. While it was easy to set up the router, the instructions are meant for the clueless and I'd really like a more sophisticated router (the only available wireless security is WEP, for example). However, I now have 12Mb download and 3.7Mb upload. That really beats BT all to hell and back.

BT turned itself off this morning around 10, and I activated my Pay-As-You-Go mobile broadband router and paid £2 for a day's worth of surfing, on the off chance that they wouldn't install the O2 equipment until then. However, I suspect they installed it immediately, and didn't text me until 5 pm, by which time I was already dressing for my evening meeting at the diocese.

Anyone out there know whether I can use another router on this O2 line, and, if so, which ones? I want one with better controls (clueless controls are basic and don't allow for a lot of variation).

Tomorrow I ask to move my Vodafone numbers over to O2, and the job is then pretty much done.

Thanks to fj and spwebdesign for turning me on to O2. It's said that satisfied customers are your best salespeople, and in O2's case, that's very true.

Well, I've made the switch. I have my iPhone, my Broadband box ready to plug in when the switch is made at the exchange, and HWMBO has his new phone. It was surprisingly difficult to get it all yesterday.

At around 1, I left the house and went to Victoria Station, where I had lunch at my old haunt of Spudulike. I was intending to go to the O2 store on Victoria Street, but, lo! I walked down the street and it was no longer there. Oops! I thought to going to Angel for it, but the connections to the Bank branch of the Northern Line are fraught from that area, so I got off the Circle Line train at Embankment and walked along the Strand, where I found an O2 store.

It took nearly an hour to arrange everything. The shop assistant was enormously helpful (and cute, too!) and I eventually got:

• An 8GB iPhone;


• A Nokia phone for HWMBO;


• A mobile broadband dongle that is pay as you go (something I have been told is impossible to find!); and


• A home broadband box for O2 home broadband.

As I walked down the Strand to the bus stop, I got a call on my Blackberry. It was Vodafone, asking whether I'd like to reconsider getting my PAC to switch to O2. I informed him that I was walking away from the O2 shop with my swag and that I wanted my PACs, please. He was most gracious.

I returned home to find an email from BT asking whether I'd reconsider. It's nice to be wanted (unless you're a criminal).

This morning I called O2 and set the train in motion to get the broadband switched over. This took a little bit of time, but everything went very smoothly. It turns out that I get 6 months free broadband, and after that less than £10 per month. The broadband is around 16Mb on my line (up to, of course, could mean less but it will certainly be faster than the BT line). fj has said that O2 is a great broadband provider, and I do hope that's the case.