The Internet is great isn't it? Today, we can find millions of pointless video clips, share all our personal information with annonymous strangers, read jokes about Chuck Norris and David Hasstlehoff, access countless photographs of fat people and of course, View from the Bar, all at the touch of a button.
Yep, the Internet is a great place, that is whilst it's working.
On Monday night, my surfing time was abbruptly cut-off without notice. After the usual trick of resetting the router, re-inputting the account details didn't work so I left it til morning. It was late and the chances were that it was probably an issue at there end and even if it was something wrong with my equipment, there was nothing I could do at 10:30pm.
So morning comes and still no Internet. Again I try a few restarts, re-inputting the account user name but to no avail. A change in leads, filters and a disconnection of the phones still didn't do anything.
So I decide to phone my ISP, Pipex. After eventually working my way through the myriad of automated answering systems my call gets "put in a queue" to be answered within the next "10 minutes or more". Whilst initially the prospect of listening to Vivaldi and Green Sleeves for 10 minutes would be considered a form of mental tourture, in some ways it was reassuring to know that I presumably wasn't the only person having trouble.
So I keep listening, and listening, and listening all the while a pre-recorded message keeps telling me how I can get help on "their extensive website" which to say is a minor irritation would be an understatement.
Why do Internet service providers (and Pipex arn't the only guilty party here) insist on directing you to a website, when the smart money for your reason for calling would be due to the fact that you can't connect? Surely the number of calls to a tech support for that reason would be hitting towards 90% and as far as the other 10% is concerned, anyone who has to phone a hotline because they can't open up Microsoft Outlook, isn't really the sort of customer I'd be overly bothered about keeping.
Then I finally got through. I explained the problem and what happened when and the fuy on the other end of the phone started asking the usual questions.
But this is where tech support people get stumped. You see, most customers would be straight on the phone the very minute their line attenuation fluctuates by more than 2db demanding an explaination. I'm not like that and actually try to work things out for myself. After all, computing is as much about learning as it is about knowing.
So when I started answering yes to the usual 'run-of-the-mill' questions like "How you reset the router?" "Have you re-entered your user name?" "Have you changed the microfilters?" "Are you using the Master socket?" "Have you disconnected the phones and any other non-ADSL equipment?" and "Have you removed any extensions?", they didn't really know where to go.
They then gave me a 'test' username, which would establish a connection with the BT exchange and verify if I had any signal drop. Firstly that didn't work the a router so they sent me away to try and source a modem from somewhere.
To cut a long story short, blind luck eventually got me around the problem. It turned out that the modem inside the router was on the blink. A USB router at least established a connection before it froze due to a driver error. I then this morning went and got a replacement router, although I was reluctent due to the fact that Sky will be giving me one once I've switched to them but needs a need, I've got three people in the house all wanting to get online.
So far
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