I came in just now to have a go at my ISP and noticed that I've reached exactly 7000 page views, only 10 months since I reached 4000. It took me over two years to get to there, and half of those hits came in a single fortnight after the assassin incident. I temper my satisfaction with the reflection that there are bloggers who get more page views than that for a single post.
Anyway, getting back to TalkTalk, who have rung me up three times in the last 24 hours, allegedly to check that I'm not paying too much, although I'm pretty sure that this will somehow involve me paying them more.
Cold calls from TalkTalk trying to get me to give them my phone line rental have been coming ever since I signed up for their broadband, but three calls in a day seems excessive. I can only assume that they're phoning all their customers, and because I end the conversation shortly after they mention who they are, my name isn't being ticked off the list of customers contacted. Ironically I am now very ticked off, and if the calls don't stop I might have to transfer my business elsewhere.
For all the knowledge that I might get a better deal (or fewer cold calls) from changing ISP, it remains a risky strategy. The last time we did it we lost all telecommunications for a week: broadband and telephone. Apparently about a tenth of customers switching ISP experience this level of service. For me the grief was compounded by my previous ISP then not accepting that I no longer had to pay them every month.
(In fairness to TalkTalk I should mention that this happened when I was transferring to Tiscali, which TalkTalk later acquired. Maybe TalkTalk would have done a better job; they certainly couldn't have done a worse one.)
But now it occurs to me that when we swapped broadband provider last time our only fallback was a £20 Nokia mobile phone. If we did it again today we'd still have three internet-enabled smartphones to provide access to the outside world. Hmm, maybe it's time to look again at what deals are available from the broadband providers. Not from TalkTalk though.
