Getting Connected

After visiting the states in November and getting spoiled by fast internet speeds, we were determined to get something better in our house. So on Nov. 17—the day we got back—I went to the internet company we had been with before, and asked them to hook us up. They checked our number and said we had the wrong kind of wires (fiber optic instead of copper) so they couldn’t do it.

So the next day I went to Vodafone, the mobile phone people who also do DSL. I asked them about it, and at first glance the guy thought they could, but they needed two weeks to run the tests or something. Well, after ten days I started trying to call them back, but no one seemed to know yet. Finally, several weeks later, I talked to someone who knew, and he said the same thing—can’t do it now. But, he said if I go to the phone company, they can change the wires and then we can hook up DSL. So I went to the phone company Central Office in our neighborhood. The customer service lady there said I had to go to the other “Central Office” over by the satellite station. So the next day I went there. The guy there told me I really needed to go to “Central #2” and gave some vague directions to it. I've been living in this neighborhood for 6 years and never even heard of Central #2! But I wandered around and asked some people and found it. It said "Central #4" on the sign, but the security guy told me it was really #2. This place was amazingly calm and peaceful—probably because no customers know it’s there. Well, the guy there took down my address and phone number, then called the service guy who works in our neighborhood. He told him the phone number, and the guy told him that none of the numbers that start with our prefix can connect to DSL. So our whole neighborhood is out. And that meant he couldn’t just come change the wires at my house.

Then I went back to Vodafone, because their website offers a wireless router that we can connect to our USB modem and share with the whole flat (and the Vonage phone). But the Vodafone store didn’t have any routers today. I asked if the other store might have them and she said “No, but you can call customer service on 888 and maybe they can help.”

I came home and told Beth we’re pretty much stuck like this for now. Then the phone repairman called me back with another possible solution. He said all we have to do is get the phone number for this house changed, and then they can connect it. (Why didn’t someone else suggest this???) The catch is that I can’t get it changed—the landlord will have to do that. I asked the landlord if he would get the number changed. We were afraid it might involve everyone in the building changing, and I didn’t think they’re going to go for that.

It's been three months now since this saga started. The landlord has been working on getting the number changed. He's called me twice in the past two weeks to tell me he was at the phone company signing the papers. I'd imagine he's been sent from one office to another more than once in this process, too. 

So, next time you talk to us on a bad connection, remember we’re working on it. But we’re still in the 3^rd World working on 1^st World problems.