Internet connection problems with my apple Macbook air and BT Hub 4 router

My first port of call in trying to connect to the internet was the BT helpline. The first thing that they did was to test my phone line, which I must say seemed strange, since I had already told them that my old Sony Vaio laptop and apple ipad were connecting in fine manner to the internet!

Having carried out tests on the line they declared that the fault had to be related to my apple Macbook air and therefore I should contact the apple helpline. The other option given that I had bought the Macbook from the John Lewis store was to contact their technical helpline and having failed to resolve the issue told me to take the macbook back to their Cardiff store. Surprise, surprise it worked fine on their network and therefore they concluded that the router in my home was to blame!

A charming lady based in sunny Greece with the apple helpline offered a glimmer of hope when she divulged the information that there were known dual issues with the apple macbook air and BT hub 4. Basically in a nutshell, the said router was confusing the macbook and the solution was to change the router settings on the macbook air.

However the BT helpline would not entertain this idea and I only found information on the correct procedure to follow in changing the settings on the BT forum, thanks to a member of the public. Eventually the John Lewis technical department did reveal this procedure when they knew I was aware of this issue, but told me it was not part of their official help strategy or any of the other helplines.

You could end up going around in circles but you need to be persistent in telling the technical support staff that they need to show you how to change the router settings on your macbook air so that you split your SSID. Basically this will mean that your macbook air is no longer confused when using the BT hub 4 to connect to the internet!

Best of luck and best wishes,

Aled

Stress with my apple Macbook air and BT internet!

Great stress can be experienced when trying to decide what type of laptop to buy and then subsequently setting it up to function properly as well as connecting to the internet!

Helplines provided by companies who sell you these products and services appear to be great on the surface, but trying to get the right information and advice in order to solve your problem can be an absolute nightmare!

Hopefully sharing my experience and the information and knowledge learnt the hard way will help other consumers faced with a similar dilemma. So let me tell you about my experience.

I decided to purchase an apple Macbook air laptop from the John Lewis store at Cardiff. My decision was based on the presumption that apple computers were the best quality on the market and I was told that John Lewis offered a two year guarantee as opposed to the standard one year guarantee and offered great customer care and after sales service.

When I opened my Christmas gift as excited as a little child, I assumed as I had been told by numerous friends that the set-up process was child play and idiot proof! Maybe so but connecting to the internet via my BT Hub 4 router was anything but a piece of Christmas cake!

This is where the dedicated helplines would come to my rescue I assumed, commencing with BT.

My next article will tell you how I got on!