Yep, if you are online in the UK at the moment (and you have a TV license), you can now watch BBC One and BBC Two live for free. This adds to the already showing BBC Three, Four, And News channels.
They say the service is currently in BETA but it is generally good and stable.
Well, after the BBC announced a couple of weeks back that they are to stream BBC1 and BBC2 starting in the next few days, it made me think – could I live with internet TV over conventional TV?
Of course, you still need a TV license to watch live TV; no matter whether its over a transmitter or an internet connection. So its no way of a couple of hundred pounds (don’t get excited). You can watch iPlayer and other on demand services without a license since they are not live, and as long as you don’t have a TV in your house, you are OK.
But I mean internet does seem to be becoming a little more practical now. We can get a huge proportion of the channels on Freeview over the internet now, and if you are one person in a house and you can cope with watching TV on a monitor, then it might save the cost of a TV and the channels to go with it.
As far as I know, you can get BBC1 and BBC 2 (in the next few days), BBC3, BBC4, ITV 1, 2, and 3, and a few other channels online. And I suspect a huge range of other broadcasters will start online soon.
As long as you have enough bandwidth in your broadband, you might find it very useful to have TV online, and I think it should be something to look forward to.
What do you think about it?
In case you have never needed to move to another service provider either for your mobile phone or broadband provider (whilst [mobile] keeping the same number or [broadband] being at the same address), a PAC code, otherwise known as a Porting Authorisation code, is a code you have to obtain from your current service provider to allow your new company to take over service providing.
It may all seem simple. For example, if I want to change from one network to another keeping my mobile number 07712 345678 (for obvious reasons please don’t call it – I have no idea if the number exists!!) I just ring up my current provider, grab the code, hand it over to my new provider, and voila! No issues there.
Sadly, some providers don’t make it so easy.
In my case, I’m trying to move my mobile from Orange to Three. And before you ask – I’m moving because I’ve discovered Three will hand me a decent phone on PAYG for a decent price and a decent tariff. Anyhow, I use Three’s online customer support to check everything will work, and now it is OK’d, I start the process; unaware it may be more troublesome than springs to mind.
First thing to do. Ring up Orange. Call 450… ok… [dialing tone], “Hello, welcome to Orange…” – oh crud a call centre. Annoyingly after spending 10 minutes of looking through menus, Orange doesn’t actually have an option for moving to another network. For most people it is quite obvious why, but not me. Why not? People have every right to move network, so why not have an option for it. Instead, I have to go back to the annoying menu, oh wait – “Sorry an error has occured and we are unable to continue processing your call. Please try later.” This is not going well and we’re only at the beginning.
So I call them back. And this time I take the route of “For any other queries, press x”. I roll my eyes when I hear “Please wait while I transfer you to a Customer Service Representative”. Oh joy. How long will it be?
Surprisingly enough, after 5 minutes of some odd band in terrible music quality, I reach someone. This really bugs me.
I tell the man on the phone that I need the PAC code so I can transfer network. He needs my name. Not too hard for me to answer. “No, that is not the name on the account.” WHAT? “It is a girls name.” Oh I know who it is. The strange thing is, it was requested several months back that the phone was placed in my name (since I pay all the bills for it now). But Orange obviously wasn’t listening when I spent 2 hours trying to get them to change it to my name.
“Could I please speak to the registered person on the phone?” Well, no, she’s several miles away. “I cannot give the PAC code out to someone who isn’t registered.” So you are going to tell me that I’ve wasted half an hour (I know some people spend much longer) wasting my time to find some idiot I can’t hear won’t give me the retchard code.
As you can see, changing numbers is not a five minute job. The mere fact that Orange has some ridiculous policy that they can’t give me the PAC over the phone – it has to be posted – really annoys me. T-Mobile are quite willing to give it over the phone and will also send you a letter to follow it up as well. (For a list of details on obtaining pack codes, see here.)
So the next time you think about changing your number, think about whether it is really worth it or are you just wasting time.
Well, according to Gizmodo, Windows Media Center for Windows 7 looks like something to seriously look forward to. Take a look at http://gizmodo.com/5095414/10-really-cool-windows-7-media-center-features/.
Listed there are a number of features that really appeal to me being an avid Windows Media Center user in Windows Vista. Take a look for yourself.
If you are someone who uses on-demand TV and music services as well as streaming live TV from TV tuners, this is going to be fantastic.
Let’s hope the public beta of Windows 7 coming in about a months time will be worth the wait!
Well, believe it or not, I’m writing this post through a GPRS connection on my phone which is connected to my laptop. And, although being slightly slow, its OK. I can browse GEEK! absolutely fine and general websites/email is fine.
I mean I wouldn’t use it for anything durastic, since file download speed on GPRS is a little short of 10kbps which is generally useless. But for light browsing and the odd email, it’s absolutely fine. It’s a shame I don’t get 3G here, because that would be more like 4 times the speed and light downloads might be possible.
I’m not one who regularly uses mobile broadband, only because it means I have to use USB to connect to my phone (don’t have bluetooth on my laptop) and then it drains battery like a rocket. It’s not a rip off since I can pay £1 and have full access (no limit whatsoever) for the whole day. Or I can pay £5 and have the week. I’ve never been told off for downloading excessively and I will use whatever I pay for quite thoroughly.
Do you use the mobile internet regularly? What are those dongles that you plug your SIM into like? I’ve never tried one myself – are they any good?