A tale of internetless woe
Tuesday, 20 July 2010 11:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yatiI think I now know the meaning of patience. It involves things like these:
I've had a problem with intermittent connection since last week. My ISP and phone company is TM, and the only reason it's still around is that there's no other reliable (hah) service around, and it controls the landlines anyway. I called the helpline last Tuesday (that would be 13 July) and after the usual (rather inane) questions about lights blinking and switches switched on and buttons pressed, this bit of conversation ensues:
Tech: Ok, go to the Start button, then All Programs, then Accessories, then Command Prompt.
Me: *tries not to bang head against desk*
Tech: Ok, you got that? You see a black box?
Me: *bangs head against desk* Yes.
Tech: Try this: type ping -- Penang, India, Netherlands, Ghana -- and space, then 127.0.0.1. Can you read the statistics on the fifth line?
Me: . . . Yes.
Then we ping more numbers.
Hey, if I sound like I'm strangling when I say yes after a suitable amount of time, and when they confirm that no, it looks like it's not a problem with my operating system, or my network card, or my modem, or my router, you can't blame me. Apparently they don't believe you when you say you've tested everything on your side and it's all working fine. Fine, whatever, I can live with that -- they're just following the script.
Then the tech on the line sounds utterly confused when I try explaining that I no longer have a working telephone to go with the phone line -- the phone died one day, and it didn't seem worth it to get it fixed so I never bothered. (I have a mobile phone and that's enough for me.) Surely you have some other way to test whether or not the line is working other than having me to pick up the receiver and listening to see whether the line is noisy?
(Also I had to try and explain this to at least three different people. I caved in today, a week after that first call: I went to a service centre -- there's one near the office -- and got my broken phone replaced just so I could say, the next time the tech called, that "no, I definitely do not have a dial tone, can someone come and check this out?" So now I have a new shiny phone with caller ID, which I'll end up not using it anyway. Sigh.)
Still. That's not what is making me want to shove a fist into your face, TM.
What makes me want to explode is when you drop by my house at 10 am on a Wednesday, which is a freaking work day without telling me you're about to come over and then leaving a pink slip of paper with the box "Customer Unreachable" checked with a note saying "Please stay at house when make an appt. TQ. [A phone number.] 8.30 am to 4 pm Mon to Fri."
I don't even. I. I have no words. I never made an appointment, you idiots. The note struck me as rude, and condescending, and mind-bogglingly idiotic. (Probably just a language issue; but then again, why didn't you leave it in Malay?) I was so mad at that point that I thought I was going to burst into tears.
I call the number on Thursday morning. I make an appointment and leave work early on Friday. Someone comes over, confirms that there's no freaking dial tone, goes outside and looks at wires and connections and telephone poles and then tells me, "We need to get another team here, someone with ladders. Probably a problem with your wiring to the box there." This is the ISP team -- they can troubleshoot your modem and test your phone lines but not the physical wiring itself. I slap my forehead and tell them, yes, fine, whatever. Get this fixed, please. They say someone will come on Saturday. No one comes on Saturday. Who's surprised? Not me.
Someone from the helpline calls on Saturday. I tell them no one has come to fix the line. They ask me to call the number on the pink note again, since that's the service centre that deals with my area directly, on Sunday -- they have people in on Sunday morning and maybe someone could come. (I didn't bother -- I wanted to go out on Sunday, not wait for some people from the telephone company.)
The helpline calls again on Sunday. I ignore it.
Like clockwork, someone from the helpline calls on Monday. They ask me if I can connect to the internet now. I sigh. They make another appointment for someone to come on Tuesday morning. I say that there'll be no one at home, but they say it's ok; they'll just check the connection outside.
I get home on Monday evening and guess what I find it my mailbox? Another pink note, saying that I was unavailable at 11.50 am Monday. I think I kicked the front door shut at this point. Of course no one was home at that time; no one made an appointment for Monday.
Today, Tuesday, during lunch, I went to pick up the new phone. The helpline calls again. I don't know whether to laugh hysterically or throw a shoe at them. The tech on the line says that it looks like there was an internet connection earlier that morning. I know there was, some time between 5 am, perhaps earlier, and before I left for work at 7:30 -- and there's no reason for it to suddenly work. It wasn't working the night before. I tell her I have a computer always on at home and it automatically connects to the network if it's available (and probably trying to resume some download as it did). I don't even know how this is happening; as far as I know no one has been around to fix anything. She says if the issue's resolved---
I cut her off before she could even suggest closing the call. Unless the connection actually stays on one whole day through, I'm not letting them close the call. It'll probably take a whole week again for something to happen. Not that anything has actually happened -- it just looks like the connection just miraculously fixed itself.
I get home at around 6 pm and it's raining so hard that visibility might as well be zero. (Was also stuck in a jam because some sort of pole toppled over the main road.) Guess what I find in my mailbox? Yep, another pink note (soggy), but at least this time it is by appointment, though I had already told them there will be no one home. Scribbled on it: "DP OK. Internal Loop." (Maybe it's "Infernal". It's hard to tell.) I have no idea what that means. Signed by someone whose name starts with Abd (it could be "Abdullah" but it's mostly illegible), with the area's service centre's number on it.
I look at the router, then the computer. Lights still blinking, no internet connection. I plug in my shiny new phone. No dial tone. Ha. I ponder the ridiculousness of the whole thing and decide the world is against me. I go read a book.
A little past 8 pm, there's an internet connection. There's still a connection now -- it's twenty minutes to midnight -- but I am not sure this is permanent. Since, you know, no one actually did anything except go around and look at things and said things are ok. If the guy that came today actually fixed something, why did things only start working at 8? Why not earlier? He came at 11 am. And the phone still has no dial tone. I am baffled.
This entry was written over a course of a week, hoping that it would end with "the internet's back!" each day and I would be able to post it. Took a while, didn't it. I hope I won't be writing another entry tomorrow going through this whole thing again.
I've had a problem with intermittent connection since last week. My ISP and phone company is TM, and the only reason it's still around is that there's no other reliable (hah) service around, and it controls the landlines anyway. I called the helpline last Tuesday (that would be 13 July) and after the usual (rather inane) questions about lights blinking and switches switched on and buttons pressed, this bit of conversation ensues:
Tech: Ok, go to the Start button, then All Programs, then Accessories, then Command Prompt.
Me: *tries not to bang head against desk*
Tech: Ok, you got that? You see a black box?
Me: *bangs head against desk* Yes.
Tech: Try this: type ping -- Penang, India, Netherlands, Ghana -- and space, then 127.0.0.1. Can you read the statistics on the fifth line?
Me: . . . Yes.
Then we ping more numbers.
Hey, if I sound like I'm strangling when I say yes after a suitable amount of time, and when they confirm that no, it looks like it's not a problem with my operating system, or my network card, or my modem, or my router, you can't blame me. Apparently they don't believe you when you say you've tested everything on your side and it's all working fine. Fine, whatever, I can live with that -- they're just following the script.
Then the tech on the line sounds utterly confused when I try explaining that I no longer have a working telephone to go with the phone line -- the phone died one day, and it didn't seem worth it to get it fixed so I never bothered. (I have a mobile phone and that's enough for me.) Surely you have some other way to test whether or not the line is working other than having me to pick up the receiver and listening to see whether the line is noisy?
(Also I had to try and explain this to at least three different people. I caved in today, a week after that first call: I went to a service centre -- there's one near the office -- and got my broken phone replaced just so I could say, the next time the tech called, that "no, I definitely do not have a dial tone, can someone come and check this out?" So now I have a new shiny phone with caller ID, which I'll end up not using it anyway. Sigh.)
Still. That's not what is making me want to shove a fist into your face, TM.
What makes me want to explode is when you drop by my house at 10 am on a Wednesday, which is a freaking work day without telling me you're about to come over and then leaving a pink slip of paper with the box "Customer Unreachable" checked with a note saying "Please stay at house when make an appt. TQ. [A phone number.] 8.30 am to 4 pm Mon to Fri."
I don't even. I. I have no words. I never made an appointment, you idiots. The note struck me as rude, and condescending, and mind-bogglingly idiotic. (Probably just a language issue; but then again, why didn't you leave it in Malay?) I was so mad at that point that I thought I was going to burst into tears.
I call the number on Thursday morning. I make an appointment and leave work early on Friday. Someone comes over, confirms that there's no freaking dial tone, goes outside and looks at wires and connections and telephone poles and then tells me, "We need to get another team here, someone with ladders. Probably a problem with your wiring to the box there." This is the ISP team -- they can troubleshoot your modem and test your phone lines but not the physical wiring itself. I slap my forehead and tell them, yes, fine, whatever. Get this fixed, please. They say someone will come on Saturday. No one comes on Saturday. Who's surprised? Not me.
Someone from the helpline calls on Saturday. I tell them no one has come to fix the line. They ask me to call the number on the pink note again, since that's the service centre that deals with my area directly, on Sunday -- they have people in on Sunday morning and maybe someone could come. (I didn't bother -- I wanted to go out on Sunday, not wait for some people from the telephone company.)
The helpline calls again on Sunday. I ignore it.
Like clockwork, someone from the helpline calls on Monday. They ask me if I can connect to the internet now. I sigh. They make another appointment for someone to come on Tuesday morning. I say that there'll be no one at home, but they say it's ok; they'll just check the connection outside.
I get home on Monday evening and guess what I find it my mailbox? Another pink note, saying that I was unavailable at 11.50 am Monday. I think I kicked the front door shut at this point. Of course no one was home at that time; no one made an appointment for Monday.
Today, Tuesday, during lunch, I went to pick up the new phone. The helpline calls again. I don't know whether to laugh hysterically or throw a shoe at them. The tech on the line says that it looks like there was an internet connection earlier that morning. I know there was, some time between 5 am, perhaps earlier, and before I left for work at 7:30 -- and there's no reason for it to suddenly work. It wasn't working the night before. I tell her I have a computer always on at home and it automatically connects to the network if it's available (and probably trying to resume some download as it did). I don't even know how this is happening; as far as I know no one has been around to fix anything. She says if the issue's resolved---
I cut her off before she could even suggest closing the call. Unless the connection actually stays on one whole day through, I'm not letting them close the call. It'll probably take a whole week again for something to happen. Not that anything has actually happened -- it just looks like the connection just miraculously fixed itself.
I get home at around 6 pm and it's raining so hard that visibility might as well be zero. (Was also stuck in a jam because some sort of pole toppled over the main road.) Guess what I find in my mailbox? Yep, another pink note (soggy), but at least this time it is by appointment, though I had already told them there will be no one home. Scribbled on it: "DP OK. Internal Loop." (Maybe it's "Infernal". It's hard to tell.) I have no idea what that means. Signed by someone whose name starts with Abd (it could be "Abdullah" but it's mostly illegible), with the area's service centre's number on it.
I look at the router, then the computer. Lights still blinking, no internet connection. I plug in my shiny new phone. No dial tone. Ha. I ponder the ridiculousness of the whole thing and decide the world is against me. I go read a book.
A little past 8 pm, there's an internet connection. There's still a connection now -- it's twenty minutes to midnight -- but I am not sure this is permanent. Since, you know, no one actually did anything except go around and look at things and said things are ok. If the guy that came today actually fixed something, why did things only start working at 8? Why not earlier? He came at 11 am. And the phone still has no dial tone. I am baffled.
This entry was written over a course of a week, hoping that it would end with "the internet's back!" each day and I would be able to post it. Took a while, didn't it. I hope I won't be writing another entry tomorrow going through this whole thing again.
