Thursday, July 15, 2010

Etape du Tour

For those of you who are interested, I am once again riding the Etape du Tour this Sunday. It's in the Pyrenees this year and features such delights as the Col du Soulour and the Col du Tourmalet; neither of which sound very flat to me. The pros ride the course next Thursday as Stage 17 of the Tour de France.

If I survive the experience, then I will be back next Tuesday.
ps if anyone can tell me why my Orange Mobile Broadband has been so slow and erratic for the last week then please let me know, as Orange don't seem to be in any hurry to do so.

5 comments:

Dack said...

I have Orange, have the same problem - and also have no idea why. There the similarities end, however, as I won't be cycling over any mountains this weekend.

Good luck!

Anonymous said...

RE: Blip in Orange telephony services.

It's because the Orange men have been a bit busy dodging bricks and bottles in NI lately

Lilyofthefield said...

"Col". Int that French for "flat bit"?

TonyF said...

Braver man than me, Gunga Din....

CJ Nerd said...

Re mobile broadband: in my experience they're just not more than about 80% reliable.

I had the same experience with 3, and ended up getting a Vodafone one for use when 3 wasn't working right. That upped my service from about 80% to nearer 95%.

A group test in PC Pro earlier this year suggested that if you travel a lot, you need to have two, three or even more with you to maximise your chances of getting a connection. Unfortunately I can't find that test right now.

If you do go down the multiple-providers route, watch out for providers that are tied in with each other- there are two that use the same network. I can't remember which- I *think* it's O2 and T-Mobile, but I'm not sure.

It's obviously more expensive to have two, but using pay-as-you-go or 30-day-rolling contracts helps reduce the cost increase.