Wednesday 14 December 2011

OFF and ON and OFF and ON and OFF and…

Looking back through my blog posts the last week, it seems it was during the Storm on Friday that it began. Frequent mini-breakdowns in my internet connection. By frequent I mean like every 10-15-20 minutes or so. However, each time I restarted the modem, and the browser, it came on back again – for a while.

I blamed the instability on the weather situation and didn’t bother to call Support. After all I wasn’t totally shut off.

The problems continued much the same way over the weekend. And Monday. And Tuesday. Yesterday I was really on my way to call Support but the thing is, I had similar problems once before (last winter or spring) and went through a lot of trouble with changing cables and trying another modem on loan (so had to go into town to get it, and then again to return it), and all for nothing since in the end the problem turned out to be at their end anyway. And I’ve just not been feeling very keen on going through that whole process again. (“Have you tried turning it off and on again?” – “YES!!!”) (That question is the catchphrase for the British sitcom The IT Crowd.)

Meanwhile, I’ve taken to a new habit: Turning everything OFF at night before I go to bed. Somehow I feel more in control that way, knowing that it’s I who have shut off the world rather than the other way round.

So my new Advent Calendar lately is to start every morning by turning ON the whole system (modem, router, laptop, phone). With that system, I usually get about 20 minutes of hope before the communication goes down again.

This morning, however, the connection went down just after eight in the morning and was still gone twenty minutes later. Then I finally called Support; and they had no contact with my modem either. So he said he’d contact the technicians to check things out. Whatever that means.

Then around nine I noticed that all the right lamps on the modem were ON again. Yay – maybe they had fixed it?

Just about then there was a BIG BANG outside. Thunder again! So I found it best to leave the computer unplugged for a while. I had other things to do anyway.

Checked the Android phone wifi connection from time to time. Seemed to stay in touch… For a whole hour. I was just beginning to think it was fixed, when it went down again.

I was able to restart though. Now I’m keeping notes! 10.00 down, restart ok. 10.25 down, restart ok. 10.45 down, restart ok. 11.10 down, restart ok. Just now the clock on the wall says 11.35… Oh, surprise, it’s actually still on…

However, in ten minutes or so I’m going down myself – to the basement, to do laundry… Dear internet, I hope you’ll let me post this before I go. Then you can take a break for a couple of hours if you like!

8 comments:

  1. Oh that would drive me mad! My mobile broadband has occasional fits but I know that it is simply demand on the mobile/cell phone network and that it will come right eventually.

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  2. An IT guy just phoned and said they've located the problem and that it will take a couple of hours but they're counting on getting it fixed today. (Meanwhile, so far, I still to be "on and off", so remains to be seen if this comment will get sent...)

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  3. ... I meant to write "I still SEEM to be..."

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  4. I am thinking another call to support. and our IT is the same thing here, the same questions and i always say when they answer befroe they ask, YES i did shut down restart and Yes i did reboot. good luck

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  5. I would have gone berserk by now. Good luck.

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  6. I can't stand it when our internet is down, I feel so cut off. We're surrounded by trees to our cell phones only work outside, the whole neighborhood is that way, If my tv went out I'd be fine, but I must have the internet.

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  7. I was very close to calling and yelling yesterday but it's hard to prove there's anything wrong until you can actually say that it does not help to turn it off and on again!!! ;)

    Now I'm having my hopes up again... I was OFF for one hour (which could indicate someone was actually DOING something) and now I've been ON for a whole hour after that, and my bandwidth is more or less back to what I'm paying for too... We'll se how it goes.

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  8. Gosh, this must just be miserable! And how on earth you get your blog published, you must have to wait till it's back on and then really rush! I will be interested to see what the problem was, once they have fixed it.

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