I went blew in the face. Then I blue it

Now that I have your attention; NO I have not lost my marbles and blown it; I’m still damned angry.

Over the past couple of weeks, some may have noticed, that I’ve appeared to have be a tad tardy, in reading, commenting on and acknowledging your posts and or e-mail.

Trouble is I’ve been having hell from my Internet connection.

Again? No! Still.

It got worse; the drop outs were coming more often, and lasting longer. Last Thursday was a pretty good day I managed to get a few hours in, Friday I got an hour or thereabouts; Saturday? Nothing no connection, Sunday? Same thing!

On Thursday, I managed to raise my ISP, Internode, on the telephone, no, not the proper telephone, the mobile thing. Remember, the proper phone now goes through that damned modem and the NBN; (nutty broadband network)?

After doing everything that he could do, the young man in Adelaide, – don’t forget everyone I deal is usually/normally a lot younger than what I am – he advised me that it wasn’t Internodes at fault it was NBN, and he would advise them and they would come and fix the fault, sometime in the next few days.

This  was on Thursday ? He had to be joking. No, no joke! He would notify them immediately and they would contact me.

 I got a ‘text’ message on my mobile thing and it reads,

 —————-Thu, 31/01/2019—————

INTERNODE:

Your fault has been received by the Wholesale Provider.                                                    The next update should occur within 48 hours, please leave                                               your router connected at all times                                                                        19:27

Note the date at the top and time at the bottom. Thursday evening nearly 6 o’clock and they tell me that NBN have been notified and will ‘update ‘’ me within 48 hours. Obviously Internode haven’t taken into account that NBN are not a 24/7 operation.

The next message I got; (is this the update within 48 hours?), is dated’

—————–Fri. 01/02/2019 ———-

INTERNODE:

A technician is booked for 04/02/between 8:00AM-12:00PM.                                                Please ensure someone over the age of 18 is in attendance.

Call 1300788233 with any queri                                                                                                        16:43

 The second message shows what I’m having to deal with;

1) there’s no such time as 12 pm, it’s either 12 noon or 12 midnight, I take it that 12 pm follows straight after 11:59:59s pm, which means that they could come when I’m in bed and possibly asleep.

No, that can’t be right; they must mean that 12 pm comes right after 11:59:59s am, completely logical, isn’t it?

Ignorance is bliss, they’ll never learn!

2) queri. Their spelling not mine; re-read the previous sentence!

3) They have the temerity to tell me that the technician is booked for a certain time; and make sure that you’re there!

Note that there is no question, “Is that convenient for you sir?”

“Will you arrange for an adult to be in attendance when the technician calls please?”

“Thank you, we apologize for the delay and inconvenience”.

Monday morning; up bright and early; not too bright, but definitely early; showered, dressed and fed  before 0730 all I have to do now is wait.

08:00; too much to expect. 09:00, still got a 3 hour time span, 09:30; “ding- dong, ding-dong” the Westminster chime; someone at the door could it be? Yes indeed, the man from uncle, well from NDN that is!

He fiddled around inside for a while, then outside to the cable, then further out to the footpath to the underground connection, back inside. Everything in order!  Few more tests.

All the NBN equipment working properly; well he would say that wouldn’t he?

The HUAWEI Modem was at fault, not only that but it was beyond hope; this modem, that I was compelled to have, and to use, and was supplied to me at some cost, by INTERNODE, less than one year ago, was useless!

It was pretty obvious really, of the 5 lights that should be on, on this HUAWEI only 2 were steady, of the other 3 2 keep flickering and the one slap bang in the middle doesn’t even try!

Much to his delight, the NBN man couldn’t get out of the house quick enough, he had 4 more disgruntled NBN customers to go and see, and I was left to contact INTERNODE!

Since being taken over by that TPG mob, Internode now has one of those delightful offshore call centres, where the operators read their lines from a script, well that’s how it sounds to me, they don’t listen, they are to just preparing for the next line. Not only that, I find it difficult to understand their accents.

I sent them an email, sometime the previous week, to Internode asking for somebody from the Adelaide office call me, as I didn’t want to talk and discus the problems I was having with someone in Israel, Egypt or Afghanistan; whatever, and I received an email from a lady obviously in China or Asia, going by her name, who advised me that a member of their “Adelaide Team” would call me.

Their “Adelaide Team”?

Fortunately, I had the War Office at home with me, with her ‘trusty’ mobile phone; remember the landline that I prefer?, goes through the computer now and ………….

I have a phone number for Internode, that gets me their Adelaide office, where I can speak to somebody who I can understand, and more importantly stands some chance of understanding me.

With the patience of Job, the W.O. dialed the 10 digit number that would get me through to Adelaide, she then went through the button pushing nonsense to select the ‘right’ section, to deal with my problem.

Was a damned sight easier in the bad old pre-technology days; when you rang a number, spoke to another human being, told them what you wanted, and they’d plug you through to the right person, must have taken all of 10 seconds.

Half hour later, after moving up through a queue, of other disgruntled customers, they’d have to be disgruntled or brain dead; I got a human who was probably as fed up as I was  by this time.

Doing my utmost to stay cool, calm and collected, I went through the whole saga, going back the past few weeks, and the culmination:. It’s not NBM this time, it’s the garbage modem that Internode sold me, for some ridiculous amount.

The modem that I must have to connect to the National Broadband Network.

My cool soon reached 50°celcius. Possibly a little, fair bit, a damned sight higher.

I’d asked them to send me a new modem  at no charge; that’s was reasonable, the thing I‘d been compelled to buy gave up in just a few months. ‘No worries”, “it’ll take  between 5 to 7 working days”.

 “Hang on” says I, “I’ve been off the net for four days, I’ve had problems for 4 weeks, and you know about this;  and now you tell me that it will take 5 to 7 working days to send me a new modem?” “Where is it coming from?”

Not Europe, not China , not the US of A;  no. it will be sent out from SYDNEY, NSW.

 “Great” says I, “tell me where from and I’ll go pick one up!” pretty reasonable?         I think so! “Can’t do that” says person on the other end, “we don’t have any pick up facilities in NSW, only in Adelaide”. “ It has to be sent out”

“Okay” says I, “get them to send it out by courier and I can have it in an hour or so, and don’t worry I’ll pay for the courier!”. “Can’t do that!”

Temperature now reading?  100°C; won’t be long and you’ll be able to cook a roast on top of my head!

“Right let me speak to the boss in charge!”

A few minutes later, a man came on, identified himself as the manager, and asked what my problem was. True! Keeping my ‘cool’ I went through the whole damned saga, culminating with my telling him that as far as I was concerned they’d breached the contract that we had; and in more ways than one. I won’t bother you all with that.

 He could offer nothing better than his young man had, except that he would give me a month’s credit. I explained that I hadn’t really had a month’s connection, so all he was offering was a refund on the money that they extracted from an account for services not rendered!

I told him I was going to give it some thought, and to ring me in an hour, and I’d tell him what I would do and what I’d expect!

After hanging up, I rang another ISP; a Melbourne. Victoria based organization, who proclaimed that they are Australian owned, Australian based, and with an “Australian call centre, say no more”; the last bit is their ‘slogan’.

Within 10 minutes, I had taken out a contract with them, say no more, my bit!

Less than half an hour later, I received a text to say that the modem that I’d ordered had been despatched, A.P. Priority, complete with tracking number and I should receive it within the next day or 2 at the most.

Shortly thereafter; the manager from Internode rang me back, I told him to cancel the contract immediately, as I had effected an internet connection through another ISP. He told me that he’d arrange for a credit for any unused time. I’m not holding my breath.

At 10.39 hours today I received a text message from Australia Post to say that they had a delivery from Aussie Broadband for me that would be delivered shortly and to text 1, 2 or 3 if there was someone, home to receive and sign for the goods.

I did as requested. I can do some things with a mobile phone, within an hour I was in receipt of my new modem

The instructions that came with it, made it the simplest installation I’ve ever had, and within 10 minutes I was connected up. It had even been programmed for my use!

 I’ve had a few teething problems, probably of my own making but I’m up and running. Again