Wednesday, 23rd. September 2026

Anxiety, frustration, heartache and pain. Switching from one broadband company to another should not be this painful, but in my experience it always is.

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Switching from one broadband provider to another is painful. It has always been painful for me, having switched a number of times in the last 25 or so years. It should not be painful and I suspect there are two reasons why it is so much more difficult than it should be. Firstly, tech companies are apt to cut corners to keep costs down, thereby duping us all into thinking we can afford the technology when in fact it should be a more sensible price. Secondly, in order to remain competitive, tech companies often release new technology before it is rigorously tested and known to provide smooth risk-free operation.

I lost an entire day yesterday by switching from one company to another, swapping one set of tech for another supposedly more advanced set of tech. The pain and frustration I went through yesterday should not be necessary, but I often found myself thinking about all the people out there, who I suspect might be a majority, who do not understand wi-fi and mesh systems as I do. I am not an expert but I have a good working knowledge acquired through previous years of pain. I had to set up my own 3-box mesh system when I moved into my present home in 2017 as the router provided by the tech company failed to provide a useful service beyond the room in which it was placed. I was told I live in an ‘awkward’ property – a 2-bed bungalow!

By midnight last night I thought the pain might have been over, but no, it continues this morning as I find four more gadgets that are not functioning, having suffered a nervous breakdown due to the change of wi-fi. I will have to figure out how to get each one going at some point.

The obvious answer to all this pain, since the tech companies will inevitably continue to inflict it upon us regardless of what we say about them, is to reduce our dependence upon it. For example, I have spent some years building a film library of mostly 4K discs and building a record library, at great expense, in order to one day switch off wi-fi, or at the very least reduce my dependence upon it. Streaming films and music is so easy but, of course, the quality is poor in comparison with yer actual media. So, not only do I move away from my dependence on broadband, but I can enjoy superior quality too. How did I ever get sucked into thinking that streaming and wi-fi dependency was a good thing in the first place?