Someone explain the internet to me

[Black_Apalachi]

OK firstly there's our internet connection which is **** to say the least. It's from a company you probably haven't heard of called United Utilities and probably almost every day I get periods where my laptop loses the connection (and just says 'Local Only'). The problem occurs with mine and my brother's laptops and both our game consoles but doesn't affects my mum's PC so we've derived the fact it's a problem relating to wireless.

Now, when ours is on the blink I automatically click the little double screens icon where I usually find a list of a good dozen or so connections in my area and more often than not there are three or four unsecured ones YES I KNOW IT'S BAD BUT THE MOST I EVER DO IS THIS AND FACEBOOK so I'll just connect to one of those for a little while until mine comes back.

So, given the fact our **** connection happens to be from a company I've never heard of and for all I know could have been founded by my mum lol, we've been pestering our mum for months, maybe even a year now, to change company. However she is adamant (after consulting the company and other experts) that it is all down to our local exchange and so there is nothing that can be done.

tl;dr BUT -REP TO COMMENTS WHICH ARE ANSWERED IN THE TEXT WALL
- crap internet
- because of obsolete company?
- other connections usually work fine even though they have less bars of signal
- ALTHOUGH LATELY THEY'VE ALL BEEN SIMILAR IN THAT THEY STOP AND START ALL THE TIME

Also I've just realised one of the ones I can use is BTFON which apparently is like a free hotspot? I'm actually on that one now but it's weak and is still doing stop/start (in fact it's gone off as I typed this thread so I'm waiting for it to come back so I can post it... ;l)

+REP FOR USFUL INFO THANKS xx

[GommeInc]

I'd ask around your area and see if others are experiencing problems. It's a bit odd for a company to blame the exchange when the exchange should just work. Full stop.

Where do you live exactly? Like a city/town? Open networks in residential areas is a bit... unique lol. And they tend to turn on and off when business open and close, like some cities turn their 3G networks on at 9 AM (or what I've noticed in Canterbury, Kent at least).

Also, do I get minus rep for saying:

"It's for porn" in answer to the thread title?

[Black_Apalachi]

When I say the exchange, I mean our proximity to it. As far as I know it's about a mile or so away, at most (which I wouldn't have expected to be relatively far away at all).

I live in a very rural residential area (if that makes sense) which is what makes it more confusing. The only thing I can suggest for the open network is a block of old people's flats behind our house. I'm not even confident it is a proper open network anyway - I connected to it and had a load of windows already open but then when I tried opening a new one if gave me a BT page asking me to either sign-in or pay for whatever amount of time I wanted to be connected for.

And lmao, +rep


Can't rep sorry ;l

[Pyroka]

try connecting you and/or your brothers laptop to the modem directly like your mum has done with a ethernet cable.

then see if it drops out. + do u and ur brother have the same laptop or different types?

i mean to me it sounds more like a router problem but its more to do with the wireless capacity of the router. what router model is it btw?

more details help alot even tho i wont be able to help till probs tommorow morning or wednesday evening when i get back to the uk.

but yeah sounds more like a router problem tbh.

[xxMATTGxx]

United Utilities is an ISP? That's a first for me. I've heard of the company but I never knew they had a broadband side of things. I know this isn't helping but was interested in the company you mentioned.