The blackout tale continues. As I wrote last week, the blackout in my local area fried my computer’s hard drive. It may also have damaged my NBN connection. In any event, my internet went into buffering mode last Saturday morning as did my TV. Those days of climbing onto the roof to check one’s aerial are long gone. The light on my modem was blue not the required green. My NBN box was not talking to my Telstra modem. This started a long drawn-out painfully frustrating process.
I called Telstra. Once through, I was told robotically that it would be forty plus minutes before someone could speak to me unless I pressed 2, in which case someone from their international team would get back to me within 15 minutes. By international team, they meant someone from India whose accent often challenges my comprehension. Lots of sorry(s) what did you say?
And so it began. In all, five separate phone conversations, including one from Desmond in Perth, the rest (one guy three gals) from India. One pleasant Indian lady who I engaged in conversation said that she was in Ahmedabad, I think, could have misheard her, might have been somewhere else. Anyway, she said the weather was too hot.
They all tried to help. No complaints there. But they all asked me to do exactly the same thing over and over again, despite me saying that I had already tried that. Unplug the modem and NBN box, press the reset buttons, disconnect the ethernet cable from the modem and connect it to your computer and check the download speed, and so on. Incidentally, by tiny laptop doesn’t have an ethernet port so I had to move my desktop closer to the NBN box in order to check the download speed. Oh, and I was asked at one point, having explained that my laptop did not have the required port: have you got an ethernet adaptor? Yes, in my back pocket – I didn’t say, because throughout it all I remained stoically polite. Alright, I admit, maybe my stoicism fell away in the end.
Penultimately, an Indian lady on the other end of the phone said, it is your ethernet cable. The NBN box is working. The modem is working. Therefore, she said with impeccable logic, it is your cable connecting the two. You need to buy another cable. Are you sure, I asked. Yes, I am, she said with absolute assurance. This was Sunday evening at this stage, about 30 hours since I had made the first call. OK, I said, I will buy one tomorrow can you please call me back on Tuesday after 2.30 pm; I had things to do in the morning. Yes, she said.
I went to Officeworks on my way to my gym in the city to buy a new ethernet cable. We only have one 25 metres long; the chap told me. Why, I asked plaintively? I think we are changing brands, he said, and the new ones aren’t in yet. I went around the corner to a Mitre 10 store and sure enough they had cables in various sizes, including one just one metre long. Good! When back home, I connected it. Alas, still a blue light, not the magic green light.
I should have said that Telstra put me on a 4G data backup in the interim, which worked but which leads me to question their claim that their modem provides adequate backup in normal circumstances when NBN fails. It clearly doesn’t, at least until you go through the onerous process of calling them.
Another Indian lady called me on Tuesday as arranged. I explained the situation, that the new cable had not worked. Unbelievably she wanted me to do again all of the switching on and off things, etc., that I had previously done multiple times. I admit at this point to ever so slightly losing my presence of mind. I need a technician to come around, I am too old for this, I whimpered.
She succumbed to my desperation and made an appointment for an NBN technician to come around next day, on the Wednesday afternoon. He duly arrived and spent around two hours at least replacing my NBN box and upgrading my connection. It simply wasn’t working properly even though the lights on the NBN box seemed to indicate that it was. Nothing that I could have done, switching things on and off, changing cables, etc., had any chance of fixing the problem. What was needed was a cable guy.
We have built ourselves smart systems. Unfortunately when they go wrong, we have not matched the systems with smart remedial processes. One phone call answered by someone with good English, armed with a standard testing protocol, should be sufficient to determine the need or not for a cable guy.
Why is it these days that we live in fear of having to sort out a problem with those who provide us with a service, for which we pay handsomely? I would like Mr Trump to fix this, in his spare time.
Heh, I was asked by Optus when I called them recently whether I wanted a new modem. He noticed that mine is 20 years old. FTTN, works fine, so I said no. If it isn’t broke don’t fix it, and it does 40/7 Mbps, which is enough for what I need.
The call I made to them was useless though, none of them had any idea. Fortunately the problem vanished of its ownsome.
Telstra recently updated my modem software.Result modem totally bricked.Many calls later we will send u a new one.4 days later it arrives .Now no issues.
Lot’s of people I know have Starlink. I am considering it for the future. However, at present NBN is adequate enough for my requirements.
Ditto.
,marree, I have been singing starlink’s praises for the last three years.
It has never let me down.
Four pieces of hardware and it took ten minutes to set it up myself.
I later had it fixed permanently to the roof.
An added bonus is, as I live remotely, mobile coverage can be spotty, starlink boosts the signal for mobiles on any provider.
Great advice, Maree. We are on activ8 at the farm, but neighbours swear by their Starlink connection. Husband keeps resisting a change to Elon.
However, since our mobile connection is now confined to wifi assist in the house (since the local towers have stopped facilitating 3G) he may relent if Starlink will provide coverage in the paddocks.
It could be worse.
Remember the Telstra monopoly?
They’d provide all of the above useless advice and charge you twice as much.
Oh Peter. I squirmed reading your account knowing that it wouldn’t be the end. I recall thinking at one stage in my life that future oldies would have it much better than my parents. And for a bit they did. Mods and cons at fingertips. Servicemen that fixed stuff. Phones that worked. And someone to speak to if you needed help when it didn’t. Now we have the apps and inter-webs to navigate to make a booking and double digit security codes to pay. Plus enduring the stupid, stupid messages telling us how better, more sustainable and ethical they all are, while we wait much longer for things to be fixed than our parents did.
Yeah, right. But paper is over, capisch?
Paper; OVER?
Vinyl is making a comeback.
It will be interesting what “information” in what format, is still readable in 100 years by the genera public.
Tried playing back a cassette or mini-disc, lately?
Or, watched a video cassette, (ANY format), or opened a 5 1/4 inch floppy for a CPM machine? (Never mind an 8 inch FD for a Unix computer).
Horrors. Peter, your tale reminded me of the horror time we had a few years ago at the farm. Similar problem, except it wasn’t instigated by a blackout. The internet connection simply went down. But we were advised to do pretty much all that you were advised to do. But it remained off air.
Finally, like you, we had an NBN technician come to the farm. He found the culprit – a mouse had chewed through the damn cable in the wall! I recall that he commented that for some obscure reason, they like a certain cable colour! Bizarre.
Fortunately, our very isolation prevented us going out and spending money on other solutions which which would have proven useless.
I lost “comms” a while back AFTER I had swapped in a newer hub / switcher I was NOT alone, LOTS of people in my Briz Vegas backwater had similar “issues”.
It appears that the mighty NBN had chucked a wobbly. While i was waiting for that revelation, I swapped out all the ‘Cat 5 / 6″ flying leads and even one that had been run through walls and other spaces; all to no avail.
I am an old analogue bloke, with a fair bit of “cable jerking” experience; everything from the old 2 and 3-pair phone cables up to pro-audio installations, MATV networks in high-rise towers, fire and evac. cabling, etc.
It always annoyed me when some new guru would start on the standard spiel about some feature without establishing the actual symptoms of the issue. “Solutions” in search of “problems”.
Tech-support by force of “personality” or some such.
As the old saying goes:
“If you cannot dazzle them with Science, baffle them with bulls…”
See also: Pollie-muppets, churnalists and their “experts”…
I say to Hairy that without him I would be lost in a technical wilderness. Whatever else we do he must make sure i always have ready cash available in sufficient wads to pay ‘a man’ (it’s never a woman’ to come in and fix things for me.
Me,too, Lizzie. I have tried to get up to speed on farm machinery and driving the tractor etc but the hard cold truth is – I don’t think I could maintain it without him, except at great expense through hired help. Even at our city house, he gets up on the roof when we had a leak in the air con & fixes it etc etc.
We have a marvellous division of labour in our lifetime together. I am the researcher who has directed a lot of decisions that have affected us financially and in enjoyment of life. He is the executioner of my mad schemes.
If all the “wires” in the pit (outside) are not working you have no chance of a connection .. Before the NBN roll-out your modem* would, likely, work if one wire (in the ground) broke/disconnected but not anymore..
The only advantage is that if the break (pit) is outside the property it’s the NBN who wear the cost .. If it’s inside your property line ……. duuuuuh ..!
Surprised the bloke who came out didn’t do a”pit” inspection .. It’s the standard procedure on a call-out if the modem isn’t ‘green” & dun a (for your benefit, cos he’s THE expert .. LOL!) ) fiddling ……..!
*Very unlikely to be a modem problem cos if you’ve got lights (any colour) your modem is working … just not connecting …….!
FiL got two new foxtel (sorry, IQ) boxes on the weekend, and myself and nephew were asked to do the install and setup. First one went OK but to set up foxtel and his soccer streaming services had to go through the old guy’s stack of old vegetable box cards with the myriad of passwords written on the back, sometimes multiple cards and passwords for the same service.
the second one though, reboots galore but could not get past a setup screen with an error code. Told to go online for instructions:
Oops, different password. Followed install instructions. Followed reboot instructions. Same error screen.please message AI online chat through popup screen bottom right.
Talked to computer online chat. Followed install instructions. Followed reboot instructions.Same error screen. Is it ok to reboot remotely? Yes. Same error screen. would you like an escalation to talk to someone on the online chat? Yes please.
Started texting with “Darren”. Followed install instructions. Followed reboot instructions.Same error screen. Twice. “OK, let’s try doing something different. Could you press the blue button on your remote?”
instantly worked.
Returning to the collapse of support for not just the LNP , but particularly for Dutton.
My wild theory is that Australians historically hate the constabulatory. Dutton not only talks like a cop, he looks like an ex cop. Uncle Anthony, on the other hand, looks like a boring, but harmless uncle.
It is a sickening fact that the average punter does not go much beyond headlines, photos and a chat at the pub and amongst friends. And they don’t watch Sky. As a result they would not have watched the debates in which Angus Taylor, Ted O’Brian and even Dutton, wiped the floor with their Labor opponents. And what will they get on the Breakfast TV shows and chat shows that they may watch? Decided support for Labor – especially Channel 9.
But returning to Dutton. He just doesn’t cut it, in spite of his good performance at the major address on Sky. It was a major strategic mistake to have Dutton as a front man.
I cling to the belief that the polls in the US election were dead wrong. In the US punters just wouldn’t tell the pollsters what they had in mind. God help us, I hope the same is happening here.
As I have posted here before, I can’t recommend iiNet highly enough.
I am a technical person (I do support for 4G/5G industrial modem/routers), so not “clueless” about this stuff.
I DID have connection problems initially, but these were because of NBN install (NBN “node” installers pulled the new cables so fast, the friction burnt through the old copper cable and “disconnected” me!) and no different to Telstra or Optus, who were useless. I thought, “try iiNet, can’t be worse..”
They were MUCH better! Didn’t work “out of the box”, I rang and told them I knew this would happen, they said “we’ll send someone out”, I said “no point – it’s in the street for sure”, they said “Yeah, but we HAVE to do this so WE can be sure”, “OK”. Turned up on time, found exactly as expected, bumped to Telstra techs.
They did what they said they would do, when they said they would do it – including calling me back smack bang in the middle of the “expected” timeframe (“18-23 mins”, called spot on 20 mins later).
They upgraded my plan without me asking, no increase in price, just “Now you get more”.
When I had technical questions about doing something a bit unusual, it took a bit to get to level 2 tech support (always does), but once there they got me sorted in no time and I had confidence they actually knew what they were doing, not just following the script.
Been with them ever since, and when I had a problem, just re-boot the modem and it came up on 4G – a bit slower, but it worked and failed back to NBN when that came good (an NBN issue, not an iiNet one) without me doing anything.