ASDL – Broadband

The day before yesterday – I finally upgraded from dialup to broadband, something that I have been putting off for years (well at least one). My old place was not within 5kms of the exchange so I couldn’t have it, but the new place is – so I though whoopee, finally I can get it.

I was so excited and I called my internet provider signed up for whatever I need, got asked the longest (and most obscure set of questions you have ever heard) and finally I was all good to go. So a few days (maybe a week) later I got a confirmation email. I borderline deleted it as junk mail/spam as the email address it came from have no official mail title on it at all – it came from a skip_wizz@shouldntreallyputuphisrealemail.com, which should have been an obvious warning sign of things to come.

But as I always tend to think everything will be ok (an Australian trait I believe – ever heard someone from OZ say “She’ll be right?” it’s said pretty often, and mostly everything is). But when I actually read the email (a week later or so) it told me a few things I was not aware of and didn’t really want to happen, for example my email address would change (yes the one I have had since the birth of the internet – or my usage anyhow – in 1996) and that all my user details would change. Also that I would be getting a self install kit to connect up by myself (now this gave me creepy visions of my tower being taken apart (by me) and laid across the floor as I muddled through the beginners guide to loading a network card and being in tears from frustration).

But this ‘self install' part was actually a lot easier than I anticipated, well initially at least, until I got a dreaded error message and the "cannot detect network connection". Complete failure! I spent the next half hour scouring all the paraphernalia that I received with the so called kit (which was actually an external modem and a cd of instructions and a brochure or two) looking for anything that said ‘troubleshooting', what to do if you have a problem, anything at all, but to no avail. I finally noticed a tech support number on the bottom of one of the pages and dialled that puppy to try my luck in call centre heaven, I then noticed a super small section (as in font – the fine print probably) which advised you if all else failed initially to turn both the PC and the modem off and turn them both back on – now this action had very positive results for me and as my call got answered the modem hooked up and I was good to go. Well for a short span of time anyhow.

Then when I spoke to the (non English speaking – apologies to all – but I am sure you have encountered this, if they don’t speak the language and you cant understand them and they don’t understand you – where is that going to lead? Nowhere is what I’m thinking, but anyway I gave him a chance) tech on the end of the line. Now he didn’t seem to have any idea why this wasn’t working or what might have been wrong, his suggestion was to advise me to turn off both the pc and the modem because this “sometimes just fixes the problem”, oh joy, thanks sooo much for all the excellent customer service and help you have provided me with.

Anyway eventually he transferred me through to someone else (upon my request – granted it was to a different section) and finally I got someone who knew their stuff. Fixed the problems for me and got all the email address and user names sorted for me, turns out I can keep the old one and she fixed it up for me.

So now I am happy all done and I am still the broadbanding queen – I download a few things to prove yes it is actually faster than dialup (well you know just to be sure, I cant know unless I prove it can I?).

So then I shut down my pc and go to bed once I tire of my internet download fiasco. Next day I log back on (just cause I wanted to) but to no avail, the internet is nowhere to be found, the PC starts up and I have a network error everywhere I look. Now I am not really internet savvy, I am aware of the concept and I knew this was wrong. I do the same thing as the day before but no luck, so once again I fall to the wily charms of technical support. And wouldn’t you know it, it was the exact same guy as the day before (oh my God!!! How lucky can one girl be?). Another half an hour of him not really knowing what to do and me eventually finding what I needed to myself and countless restarts later and my PC once again hooks up to the internet of its own devises. I hang up as quickly as I can after it does this and decide that I will never again turn off my PC and the internet will be hooked up forever and I will never have another drama. Oh yes, I am still wrong.

The next morning the PC has once again disconnected and upon countless restarts, setting changes and disabled programs it will still not hook up. Exasperated I once again go to call tech support only to shutdown one finally time and restart to notice as I am waiting in the queue it has hooked up (nasty bugger knew what I was doing I think). So anyhow my broadband experience has been less than pleasant, I am on the boarder of returning all the stuff and requesting I go back to dialup. I am not sure that it is worth all the angst that this is causing me, in my favour I do have a computer savvy friend who is willing to help me sort it out – apparently I have been advised that my settings are not configured properly (I’m not sure that sentence was even in English) so I will talk to him and see if he can help me fix the problem (tech support are less than helpful at my ISP).

As much as I want to, I don’t really think I have time to piss with my computer for over an hour each time I need a little internet connection. So I will see…