And yesterday, I also spent two hours on the phone to Bangalore trying to get my ISP to understand that there was some problem on the network in my area.
Two hours.
At the start of which, after some unknown time on hold, I told the support person that there was some problem on the network, because the connection speed had been crawling and now, even though I was (mostly) able to connect, nothing was getting through.
"All right, then, why don't your turn off your modem and turn it back on again."
"Well, I've already done that about a hundred times and it doesn't make a difference ."
So it went. I understand that they need to work through the checklist and make sure the problem isn't my equipment. I'm sure that 99.999% of the time the problem is the user. But, hello, not this time, okay? And who knows, my router is old and even solid state electronics fail eventually, or they may have changed something on the network side so the firmware in the router is no longer compatible.
We finally got through this lady's checklist and when the problem still remained (because, see an hour ago, not my equipment), I got a trouble ticket number and kicked up to the next level. Where I was told to turn my modem off and then back on again.
Eventually, while we were going through a ping check, someone said something to my helper "Andy," who told me, "So, I don't want you to be angry, but it seems we've had a lot of calls and some outage in your area."
"Yeah. That's what I said."
But the checklist didn't end there. At last, I was told that they were going to have to talk to the vendor in this area (the phone company) and that my service should be back by evening.
My service was actually back before then. But still!
Then, yesterday evening, a telemarketer called me. They really picked the wrong day to try and sell me VoIP.
343 words | May 16, 2006 10:15 PM | Wired