Once
again we’re having problems with our Internet connection, as supplied by
Branson’s Harlot Media. For a few weeks we were having random brief losses of
internet access even though connection to the hub was reasonably stable. On
Thursday night the, by now not unfamiliar, “connected, no internet access”
message appeared and re-booting the hub made little difference until, as if a
miracle had occurred, the connection was quite arbitrarily restored.
Friday
morning, on switching on the laptop a few new e-mail messages appeared. On
following the link supplied, by a trusted merchant, I was surprised to receive
the message that there was no internet connection. My first reaction was to try
a different browser only to get the same result. On checking another pc I
discovered that we had no internet access. I duly tried unplugging the hub and
rebooting to no avail.
Next I
contacted the 0800 number to check on internet status in the local area and was
informed that there weren’t any problems. After several attempted re-boots I
decided to contact the 150 number were they ran some tests after which they
told me there were no problems but, then launched a further series of tests
which they said would last up to ten minutes. Twenty minutes later, the problem
not having being resolved, I once more contacted 150 and eventual was put
through to a real live engineer of some kind. After answering a series of
questions concerning account name etc, I was asked what date I paid my direct
debit, to which I responded that I would require internet access to tell them
that. Another question followed for
which I would have required internet access to give the correct answer.
Security checks satisfactorily answered, the person on the other end of the
line ran further tests and couldn’t find any problem.
At this
end, the problem remained the same regardless of which pc or tablet I tried. I
was eventually told to reset the hub and hold the pin in for a couple of
minutes. Once again to no avail and, by this time the need to move to different
parts of the house was playing havoc with my pain prone knees. After about 35
minutes of them running these checks they decided they would send an engineer
on Saturday afternoon sometime between 12.00 – 4.00pm. They also commented that
our hub was a rather old one, which caught me by surprise as I had assumed that
the supplier would ensure that the equipment supplied would be up to the task.
If it’s rather old, then surely, that is the ISPs problem and it shouldn’t be
left to create problems for the end-user.
Wish I
could say that it’s unusual to have any difficulties with our beloved ISP but,
that wish remains upon its distant star. April of last year the problem was
with our landline telephone, also part of the harlots domain (see: OfHEALTH and TAINTED VIRGINS ) a problem for which their response could only
be described as dilatory.
Later in
the year for a considerable time I was getting speeds well below 20Mbps (Ethernet
connection) on what was purportedly a 70Mbps service. I had considerable
discussions with them regarding this problem via social media but the speeds
temporarily improved so I duly thanked them. Not long after this we were
upgraded to a 100Mbps service but, even here I’ve had occasions where the speed
has once again dropped to the 20Mbps range, when checking via Ethernet connection, at different times of day and night to counter the prospect of it simply being
a period of heavy usage. Needless to say, the wireless speeds at these times
are even slower.
!9.10hrs:
miracle of miracles we have an internet connection – the big question is how
long?
Considering past experiences going back to at least 2007 (see: AVIRGIN FAILS to provide a service ) I would be ill advised to cancel
tomorrows visit from the engineer!
