Saturday morning when I got up, my internet connection and my phone were working. Why is this significant? Because for most of September and October sometime between Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, my phone would go down and the technicians from the telephone company could not give it a permanent fix.

By their third visit, they were blaming my telephones and my house wiring (which they installed just 2 years ago). So fixated on blaming my telephones and in-house wiring were these guys that, once they had confirmed that the line was working up to the pole outside my house, they simply ceased to troubleshoot any further and blamed my equipment. Over the course of 3 weeks they blamed my telephones, my wiring, my modem/router, my line filters, even the weather!!...but failed to troubleshoot beyond the pole.

A week ago a tech came out and when he started his blaming the customer song and dance, I lost my temper and read him the riot act and demanded he go up on roof and check the wiring from the pole to my house and from there, the wiring up to the first telephone in the series, and to replace it if it looked worn. He balked. He called his supervisor to complain about what I was asking, moaning about how long it would take to replace that wire. I refused to "no" for an answer and I actually yelled at the technician (something I seldom do--my maid has worked for me for 5 years and I haven't raised my voice to her even once in all that time).

My husband stepped in and spoke to the supervisor who informed us that the technician told him we had illegal extensions and that was causing the problem. Hubby had to get out a phone bill to prove our extensions were installed by the phone company and we paid a fee every month for each of them. The technician pretended he couldn't read the bill when the supervisor asked him to verify that. Finally, he was told to comply and my husband actually went up on the roof with the technician to ensure he did as I asked.

And guess what? On the roof they found the wire that lead from the pole to the kitchen phone had lost some of its insulation and the bare copper was exposed to the rain, wind, birds, falling leaves and whatever else. The technician replaced the wire, but remained unconvinced that it was the source of the problem. But I got up on Saturday and my phone and my ADSL were working...and this morning it was working, despite a hellacious electrical storm last night.

 I, for one, will not be surprised if they keep on working since the one place the technicians repeatedly overlooked in their troubleshooting had a fault and that fault was finally corrected. I expect things will work just swimmingly, at least for a while...until something new comes along to toss me off the internet again...

The challenges of technology...

Well, I finally have my Telkom ADSL back. It only took a month to get it reinstalled and have several visits from the technicians to troubleshoot the installation to get it working right. Yesterday I had to call Telkom because I was hooked up to the ADSL line and the router was showing all lights green but I was getting no data transfer.

So, here is the comparison between Cell C and Telkom: when I had the exact same problem with my Cell C stick and I tried to call tech support it took 90 minutes of calls to finally reach one person who didn't know anything about the stick or the network and could not help me; whenever what was wrong with the network was eventually corrected, my data began to flow again (hours later). I called Telkom once, the second person I talked to was the right guy (who actually knew what was going on) who said "let me reset something..." As soon as he did that, it was fixed. The whole thing, from my realization that data was not flowing to the resumption of my data stream, took less than 15 minutes and only one telephone call.

I am not whitewashing Telkom. I've had my issues with them and some of their installation technicians are modern day incarnations of the Keystone Kops, but at least when I call with a problem I can 1) get through to them, usually on the first phone call; 2) get the ear of someone who at least has a clue about the technology that is not functioning; 3) has some reasonable idea as to what to do to remedy the problem. None of the three, in my experience, apply to Cell C when you are faced with a problem with those ridiculous whooshless sticks.

But my technology problems don't stop there. For the past week or so (today being a notable exception) my router has been going nutso. This is a wireless router and not only does internet reception to the laptops depend on it, we have wireless printers, so they depend on it too.

The router is usually left on all of the time. It kind of defeats the purpose of having laptops with batteries that can be used anywhere in the house or garden to have to hunt down a plugged-in device when you want to use the wireless one, so it stays plugged in. This has never been an issue in the past.

When we reinstalled the ADSL, the router had been in constant use during the ADSL hiatus since we needed it to print, no matter what our data source. But once the ADSL line was restored, the router started acting badly. On the off chance that it was a question of age (the router is at least 5 years old), Hubby updated the firmware. It solved the data drop out problem, but now a new problem has begun: it turns itself on and off.

Now this, I think, is absolutely bizarre! I go to bed at night and the router is plugged in and working. I get up in the morning, boot up the laptop, and it can't connect to the web. I go check the router and the lights tell me that it is turning itself on, booting up the in-house wireless, hooking up to the internet...and turning itself off and then after a second or two, turning itself on and starting the cycle all over again!! This will go on endlessly unless I unplug the beast and leave it alone for an hour or so before plugging it back in.

One might think it is an overheating problem, but I tried unplugging it at bedtime and plugging it in come morning and the problem returned. And it doesn't happen every morning...this morning it was just fine. And the problem isn't limited to morning (although it usually occurs then)...over the weekend Hubby had to reset the stupid thing several times in mid afternoon in order to get his internet connection.

I can't figure out if we have a hardware problem, an incoming line problem...or if the cosmos is trying to tell me I am spending too much time on the internet!

Communications Breakdown

We all know how I feel about Cell C...and that I think Telkom, as bad as it is, is a better alternative for internet access.

I am beginning to rethink that...

After months of sturm und drang regarding that stupid stick and weeks of angst waiting for the Telkom ADSL line to be restored, last week it all finally came together and I had my ADSL line back! But my joy was to be short-lived.

For some reason, my ADSL line crashed and on Friday the technicians showed up...and they were clueless. Three of the four lights on the front of my wireless router were on, and the wireless was working because we were able to print wirelessly, proving that it could both receive (from the computer) a wireless signal and send (to the printer) one. And despite this, the technician declared that my wireless router was "broken" and I needed to install a Telkom router which he conveniently had in his truck...

About this time Hubby, the engineer, came home and upon his arrival the technicians stopped trying to blow smoke up my arse. They had their router in hand and plugged it in and it worked...but when Hubby demanded they plug the data line back into our router voila! magically, our router suddenly showed all four lights and in a matter of seconds, my laptop connected to the internet.

I suspect I know what was going on...if Telkom can convince the customer that the problem is caused by the customer's equipment, not the Telkom line, they get to charge you an extra fee for an "unnecessary call out." By convincing me the router was bad, not only could they sell me the router they brought with them, the could charge me an "unnecessary call out" fee. If the problem was in their line...which it was because once their router worked, my router worked too...then Telkom makes no money on the visit.

Anyway, they left on Friday and for the next three days I enjoyed reasonable speeds and uninterrupted data flow...it was such a relief after months of drop outs, painfully show data speeds, and continual rebooting of that accursed stick! But, as I said, my joy was short lived...

Tuesday morning I stepped into the study and saw only two lights glowing on the router. I picked up the phone to call Telkom and the line was dead. I went all around the house, checking to make sure all the phones were properly seated, then called Hubby to make sure he had not forgotten to pay the bill. He had not, but the phone was dead anyway. Monday it was working fine, because I spoke with my contractor on the landline, but sometime during the night it died.

I'll give Telkom credit...reaching someone to report the problem was way easier than trying to reach Cell C to make a report! But like Cell C, unless you were calling from their own phone system, you couldn't make the call without charge. How stupid is that?? Oh, both systems provide toll-free calling to report faults, but in both cases you must be calling from their system...and if your phone that it on their system is the one that is dead, just how are you supposed to call them using their system??

What I found to be even more moronic was Telkom's suggestion that we report faults using their website. Sorry, guys, but that is just plain illogical. If my line is dead it means my ADSL is dead too...just how do you expect me to access your website when I can't get onto the internet because your system has crashed and left me without access??

I managed to get through to a person to report the fault and she said she would SMS me a reference number. She didn't. All day Tuesday I was without a phone or ADSL. The line was not dead as in "open air" sound but no dial tone, it was dead as in "did somebody cut the phone lines or unplug this handset?" Between us, Hubby and I called several times, trying to either get a reference number or some information as to the nature of the fault and estimated duration.

Although it wasn't difficult to get to a technician, getting one who had even a clue was very difficult. In one case, I got a woman who actually asked me if my phone was plugged into the wall...this is after the fault had been logged and I was calling the number you are supposed to use to check on the progress of your report! When I said "of course it is plugged into the wall...where else would I plug it?" she transferred me to someone who told me I needed to call 10212 (fault reporting line). I told her I had called 10212 and that was how I ended up speaking with her...and she repeated herself! I'm sorry, it is not my fault that the last dimbulb I spoke with transferred me to the wrong extension, but did she really think, knowing my phone was dead and I was probably talking to her on a cell phone, that I needed to start the expensive cell-phone minute chewing process all over again? Apparently she did, as she transferred me to 10212 and I had to start the process all over again! On Tuesday, the best we could eventually get was "your report is in the queue and it will be handled."

So, I asked Hubby how long to wait before we called again...he said "Give 'em two days." And so, yesterday morning at about 11, I girded my loins and called again. This time I actually managed to get someone who not only had a brain, she was quite apparently familiar with its operation! She checked my phone line, did a little research on her computer, then came back to tell me that I was not alone, that quite a few people in my area were reporting the same thing. "When will it be fixed?" I asked. She didn't have an answer.

"Well," I said, "since more than one person in my area has the same problem, shouldn't this be a higher priority for you?" She pondered this for a long, silent moment, then said "I will escalate this for you." And escalate it she did...by 3 yesterday aftenoon, phones and ADSL was back on and working perfectly. And when I got up this morning, it was working perfectly still!

I wish I could close this tale with a triumphant, upbeat ending, but this is South Africa and, despite our position as the richest, most technologically advanced nation on the continent, our communications industry is shameful. And, sure enough, by 9 this morning my email refused to send a mail and when I looked to the router, saw only two lights glowing. With a sinking feeling in my stomach, I picked up the phone, only to find it just as dead as it was yesterday at this time. Back to square one...and because today is Friday and Monday is a public holiday, I don't expect to see my phone or ADSL active for at least a week.

The locals call the company "Helkom" for a reason...

More Cell C nonsense...so lame it's almost funny!

Yesterday I received a comment on my post "Dear Cell C" that was supposedly from the CEO of the company. I dunno if it was really him or a person with a sick sense of humour, but it doesn't matter since I was unable to respond to LPR's offer to help me because LPR didn't bother to leave me a number, email address, or other means to send him my contact details. In case you don't already know, leaving a comment on a blog in no way enables the blogger to contact you back, especially if your own profile is private and the blogger get can't into it to send you a message back!

Then, this morning, I got an email from Cell C's Customer (dis)Service saying...and I quote..."kindly contact up on 140 fro more information on your speed stick." It was followed by a link entitled "Disclaimer."

OK, I wasn't born yesterday and the dismal spelling and (lack of) capitalization put me in mind of a phishing scam. Add to that the fact that dialing "140" on the cell phone got me to a recording that told me there was no such number. I am actually hoping that this email was a phishing scam or some lame attempt at a hoax because if that email really did come from Cell C, the company is even more hopeless than I thought.

Meanwhile, I have been without landline service since Tuesday morning...Telkom tells me this morning that I am not the only one in my area reporting trouble. Ummm...okay...then shouldn't that make this a higher priority than just one lone person calling up to report a line fault? The technician agreed to "escalate" the report, whatever that means. But for the short term, I have no land line, which means no phones, no fax, no ADSL, and this miserable stick...which works capriciously at best...as my only link to the net.

I love South Africa, but if American telecom companies worked like the local companies, there would be some serious head rolling going on!!

Adventures with Telkom

So, Hubby, tired of listening to me moan about that accursed Cell C stick, calls up to get Telkom's ADSL line reinstalled.

After a few days, I get a call from Telkom confirming Hubby's call and confirming the order...except that they have the order wrong. I correct them, they acknowledge.

Monday, the ADSL line is functioning...for about 3 hours. Then it is back to the stick while Hubby calls Telkom to report the line has gone down.

After a few days, Telkom calls to tell him that the technicians will be out Friday (today) at 4:30 to see what is wrong with the line.

At 8 this morning Telkom calls to confirm the technician are coming out: "You want to convert your ADSL line to regular phone lines?" the caller asks me. "No," I say, "I want my ADSL line to work," I tell him. "Oh!" he says, surprise in his voice. "Your line is not working?" He then tells me the technicians will be here at 10 this morning.

At 8:30 my phone rings...the technicians are outside, "testing" my phone line. "There's nothing wrong with my phone," I tell them. "My ADSL line is not working."

A few minutes later they are at the door and after seeing my wireless router, I am asked if I asked for "wireless" when I signed up for the new ADSL line. "I don't need to do that," I told them. "I have used this router in three houses in two cities and NEVER had to sign up for wireless...you just put an ADSL line into the router and it makes the wireless signal."

He appears unconvinced. Taking the router down from its lofty perch he examines it. "Where is your ethernet cable?" he asks.

"Huh?" I respond. "This is wireless, it doesn't use an ethernet cable."

He sends his partner out to their truck to bring in their own wireless router which, when plugged in, shows the four lights necessary for connection...mine had only been showing three."

"Your router is broken!" he tells me.

"It was working just fine earlier in the week...it had all four lights and I had an ADSL connection, then suddenly the ADSL line was dead."

By this time my husband, the engineer, has come home. They cannot blow smoke up his arse because he knows more about this than they do. "There is nothing wrong with the router," he tells them. "The wireless is working just fine...we can print to the wireless printer using it...the problem is your ADSL line."

The techs are not convinced. I leave the room so Hubby and the techs can talk jargon and try to convince each other that the other party is wrong. Eventually the techs call their office on the landline, have the person at the other end synchronize something, plug my router back into the ADSL line and voila! all four lights come flashing on!

My router is fine, just as Hubby said, but the technician is not convinced. He then unplugs the ADSL line to see which light goes off on the router...he is sure my router is faulty, despite the evidence that was before his very eyes!

Eventually, Hubby convinces him that the router is fine, and now they have fixed the ADSL line so everything is working. He escorts them to the front door and goes back to his office, thankfully only five minutes away.

Amazingly, this fiasco...which ended in success...is preferable to the ridiculousness of the Cell C experience because at least I can reach someone on Telkom's phone and eventually someone comes out to fix the problem. Three months with Cell C and the problems were never resolved...

I know how weird it sounds, but I am actually glad to be back in the clutches of Telkom for my internet connection!!

Hello---I'm back!

It took Telkom (not-so-fondly known as "Hellkom" hereabouts) two weeks to get my phone and internet lines installed, and then the internet line failed after a few hours. It took them an entire week to get a technician out here to fix what turns out to have been a faulty installation.

So, as of late yesterday I am back on line, but right now I am up to my eyeballs in alligators, so I won't be able to post all the stuff I wrote while I was off line...but I will get to it soon, I promise!!

A Murphy’s Law kinda day

Today has been, to use an Afrikaans expression, a kak day.

At 5 am I discover I have no internet connection. After an hour and several phone calls, I discover that our ISP is fine but our telephone company, Telkom (aka Hellkom) has a DSLAN (whatever that is) down at the exchange in my area. They don’t know how long it will take to fix it, but they will magnanimously take a fault report from me, even though they already know it is broken. They can’t tell me how long it will take to fix it…but what they don’t tell me is that they have no overnight repair crews, so every person and business in my entire area (which includes several malls and the area’s largest casino) will have no internet at least until the first of the repair crews report for work at 7:30 in the morning.

An hour later the phone rings…it is some woman doing a survey for Telkom and she wants to talk to the person who logged a fault that morning. Much to my dismay, she cared nothing about the crap telephone tree that kept me holding while it went through ten minutes of “try this fix” suggestions that didn’t need…I had already spoken to my ISP, knew was was wrong, and just wanted to log the fault. No, what she wanted to know was whether or not the service tech with whom I spoke was polite or nice…basically the same question about the poor guy who had to take me call at 5:30 am, but not a single inquiry about the difficulty in getting to the poor guy, or their crap service that necessitated the call in the first place.

So, I go about my day, periodically checking on my internet connection…nothing. At nearly 11 I call to check on the progress and am told “they are working on it.” Not what I wanted to hear…the last time someone from Telkom told me that, it took them 12 days to get someone to come out to the house and track down the reason I couldn’t connect to the internet…twelve days! From this phone call I learn that Telkom, the telephone monopoly in South Africa, does not have emergency crews to address line faults outside of business hours…reason enough for me to switch to the first competitor that lands on our shores. How can you operate a 24/7 service without having 24/7 repair crews? I can see limiting scheduled maintenance to business hours but emergency repairs? Does this mean if that DSLAN committed suicide at 6pm on a Friday, my whole area would be without internet until Monday morning? What is wrong with this picture?

So, the day moseyed on until my maid, who likes to watch Days of Our Lives while she irons, comes to me and says something is wrong with the living room TV. Already hearing the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments when Hubby discovers his precious big screen has gone kaput after only two years, I rush down stairs. But, it turns out, that the satellite company has turned off access to the “second” TV and when I get upstairs and check the “primary” TV, I get a message that says I must have a valid subscription. This is all well and good except for one thing…our subscription does not expire until May, so we are still quite valid, as far as I know.

Midday I went downstairs and with the able assistance of my intrepid maid, whipped up some homemade bagels (what passes for bagels here is a travesty!). Returning to my air conditioned bedroom I find my computer has turned itself off Now, this is a laptop, sitting on a tray on my bed…the battery is fully charged AND it is plugged in! I have two virus/malware detectors, one scans every day at noon, the other every Monday night…so far no problems there. But when I rebooted, it gave me the screen that says Windows did not shut down properly…the same screen I get with a reboot after I’ve had to pull the battery to force a shut down after a freeze. I still don’t know what the problem was…

The second fellow I talked to at Telkom also could not give me an estimated repair time, but when pressed, said I should call back and check the status of my report after 2 pm. He was polite and helpful and actually had a bit of information…I thanked him politely and put down the phone. I waited until 3…still no internet.

So, taking a few deep, cleansing breaths, I picked up the phone and dialed Telkom again. OK, I know the spiel from the Chatty Charlie recording and wait to be prompted for checking on a reported fault…the prompt never comes and instead I am routed into the nightmare that I first encountered this morning. It was not until my third attempt that I finally got the desired prompt, pressed the “2” button and ended up with someone in a call centre in Bloemfontein, roughly 500 kms away, who doesn’t know Fourways (the faulty exchange) from a gangway. A nice enough fellow, I have to admit, but he gave me the shocking news that the fault had been “cleared” (meaning the technicians claimed it was fixed) but when he pings the exchange, the DSLAN doesn’t respond.

Eventually, after a series of resets and pings and fiddling around, my internet came back…after ten hours. The problem, it seems, is that the fault actually was cleared, but I needed to reset my router…neither of which Telkom bothered to communicate to me. If Telkom has the ability to sic that survey person on me within half an hour of logging the fault, someone kindly explain to me why they were unable to notify me that the fault had been cleared and my router needed resetting.

So, finally, around 3:30 I was able to get on the net, get my email downloaded, and get my browser back up. Just as I was going into FaceBook, however, to reply to a couple of messages…can you even guess what happened? Yup…this is Jozi, land of the disintegrating infrastructure, and my power went out.

So now it is back and I’m sitting here wondering if I dare leave the room. I am afraid to contemplate what new techno disaster may befall me, and I’m not going to hex myself by indulging in idle speculation, either!