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The next run in I had with the ‘man’ was with my beloved broadband provider NTL. While I’d had absolutely no problems with the service for about three years with speed upgrades from 600Kb, 1Mb and then to 2Mb, I ran into problems when I couldn’t resist the urge to upgrade to the immense sounding 10Mb. I didn’t really need it, and it was £10 more, but I’m a pretty impatient fellow and 10Mb sounded great.

But I soon began to rue my hastiness. 10Mb is pretty much useless when the connection won’t stay alive for more than 20 minutes. It seems that my modem, a Home: 120, which had served me so well through the numerous speed upgrades wasn’t able to cope reliably with 10Mb and there were lengthy forum posts of users with the same issue. But would NTL change my modem?. No, it darn well wouldn’t. It sent an engineer to mess around with the signal a bit but after a few weeks it was off again.

So when my modem suddenly gave up the ghost after the umpteenth reset it was actually a stroke of luck. Two days later I finally had a newer model, which seems to have stopped the problems. And one more thing. 10Mb for 25 quid? Be, soon to be 02, is charging £24 for 24meg. Considering I rarely get downloads faster than a 4Mb connection would give me, I hardly think NTL’s 10Mb is great value.

Also recently, my Norton Anti-Virus subscription software was up. After repeatedly ignoring the reminders it finally ran out and I realised that I really ought to do something about it. So I did. I uninstalled it and replaced it with the free edition of Grisoft’s AVG anti-virus software. Hah! It runs more unobtrusively, works just as well and seems to soak up fewer resources than Norton. Well it certainly soaks up less financial resources.

And then there’s Sky – which keeps sending me invitations to upgrade to Sky HD. Ironic considering that I keep thinking I really ought to give Sky the heave ho and save money. I would have done it by now if only Microsoft Media Center was more reliable and I had better Freeview reception from my ariel. Don't get me wrong - as an AV enthusiast I would jump on board if I could afford it - but Sky wants an extra £10 a month for its HD subscription, on top of your existing one. And on top of that there’s the £300 it wants for its box. Not to mention the fact that you need to fork out for an HDTV. With that in mind I can’t helped but be bowled over by Sky and Sony’s generosity. Sign up for Sky HD and you get a whole £100 off a Sony Bravia TV. Yes, a full hundred quid. Well, woopee-do.

So it seems three years after Dixons was rapped for hard-selling pointless warranties, companies are still happy to take your money, but customer service and value for money seen to be rare commodities. All you can do is be choosy about the companies you give your money to. If we all did it then it could make a difference and eventually we all as consumers would benefit.

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