Solar & EVs require data communications. Some chargers such as the Ohme require a CT clamp that measure the total current being drawn, then limits the charging to keep the maximum current below typically 100A. This generally requires a CAT5 or CAT6 cable running from the car charger to the fuse box. Shown below 2 x CT clamps one for the Solis Solar Inverter and another for the Ohme charger.
  Some rearranging of fuse box/s are required to stop the Ohme charger draining the house battery when Octopus Intelligent go trigger charging outside the cheap rate time window.
   The new arrangement on the left allows the Ohme CT clamp to "see" the full load on the main fuse. The only draw back is the Inverter CT clamp only see's the the load on the main fuse box so the data logged by the inverter is incomplete (not a issue). This has fully solved house battery draining problems.

Over the years I've bought many (now discontinued) BT Big Button 100 phones for the elderly and particularly the hard of hearing. These where good loud phones, wall mountable that would wake the dead.
   Now BT or whoever manufactures them have changed the design to the BT Big Button 200. Ive bought more than 10 of the "Two hundreds" over a 2 year period, they are not wall mountable and most come back as faulty, one of the main complaints is they cant hear them. the volume when on loud fades after a few minutes, leaving the customer unable to hear them. This never used to happen with the BT Big Button 100 & the customers that are usually elderly do not really know whats happening. When taken to the shop and tested the sales person with perfect hearing tests then for 1 min & declares them to be fine!
   They are a pile of junk that should never be inflicted on the elderly, Im never buying this phone again !

With Fibre To The Premises (FTTP) your copper wire no longer carries the "old fashioned" dial tone & speech, so now you have to plug the phone into the green socket on the Hub.  

"But I have 3 plugin phones in the other rooms" I can hear every body shouting.
   You could get a BT plug to BT plug adaptor and run it from the green socket to one of your existing BT sockets BUT, your original house wiring is still connected to the BT network and may have 50v stopped dial tone on it which could short out your router and generally confuse everything.
Options are -

1. Buy a set of 2 or 3 cordless phones EG BT4600 trio - plug the base unit into the green socket.
   
2. Have the house wiring altered to accommodate the new router.

   Ive had so many faults traced to Care lines lately, but when I ring up the care line people, they -don't- care or they just decide that they can diagnose a faulty care line from their office better than a Telephone engineer with 25 years experience that is actually on site 🙄
​   These clanky old devices are dished out to people with no choice and little ability to figure out these things are causing them problems on their telephone line, such as an intermittent short circuit making them Perpetually Engaged (cant ring in) and cant ring out. The poor customers are then made to feel even more vulnerable, as if its them not operating the equipment properly, and when the customer no longer has use for them they are passed on to the next victim.
   If you suspect your (Don't) Care line demand a replacement. Wouldn't it be a real shame if a cup of coffee got spilled on it then they'd have to replace it.🤔

I've had 6 of these faulty from 3 different suppliers. I'm not buying these again. The Loud button doesn't work, they test faulty making your phone line permanently engaged.

Well lots of calls recently about Catch up TV not working. TV says sign in to your BBC iPlayer account.

BBC have started making everyone that uses it - Create an account and sign in on all there devices. Also the other channels ITV CH4 are following suit. lots of puzzled technophobes out there now.

Go to BBC iPlayer / ITV / CH4 on your laptop / iPad / Smart phone - Create an account - pair up your account to your TV with the pairing code. Simple !
"But I just wanted to watch TV"

Here Im going to list companies with extortionate get out clauses. I.E. > £100
Most well know companies typically have a £55 get out fee.

3 year tie in ?
​Chess ICT
​chessict.co.uk

The new BT hub 7 with the amazing wifi - NOT

Incapable of passing through a wall. Having set up 3 of these in a week, and having customers complaining of not getting the wifi around the house. Ive come to the conclusion that this version could not penetrate a paper bag!

Wont
infiltrate
far
if at  all

My broadband is now running fast like it used to. Since upgrading the EE broadband package it is working much better - back to how it used to be.