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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Who's Your ISP?
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Today was the deal-with-internet shit day.
I resolved to leave Shaw upon my eviction from the previous house. I'd had enough, would disconnect my service, went down and paid my bill and asked for a disconnect. They advised me they needed thirty days notice to disconnect me.
Now of course they don't. They can disconnect you in 30 seconds or less, if they're so inclined, but they weren't and so I was stuck for paying for thirty days service they knew I wasn't going to use.
They make a fortune off of unorganized schmucks like me. Inwardly fuming, but what can you do? And so I pay the bill and future date my disconnect.
After I moved it dawned on me that, still being a customer, I probably still qualified for their move program, and so called them and arranged for an installer to come out and reinstall Shaw at my new address.
Which they did, except there was a problem with the internet that day and so the installer told me to wait and eventually it would come on by itself.
As you'd expect it didn't, and a call back to Shaw revealed other issues and they promised to send another installer out to correct the issues.
Which he did the next day, and after an hour and a half of his troubleshooting and installing, and if I didn't mind the computer being hooked up in the bedroom I was all ready to go.
Which I did mind, but after an hour and a half, plans for the day and my daughter slowly being ruined, and the resolve to quit Shaw after my 30 days notice were up, I simply accepted.
SO I'm learning and I get the jump on my departure from Shaw by calling Telus and ordering their high speed internet. I'll overlap them, that way I won't be out of internet.
They have a great promotion, 6 months at $10.00 per month, $45.00 less than Shaw, no contracts or commitments, and it would seem they can get the setup done in my living room/office, which is, after all, far more convenient than having it in the bedroom. They book me a service call for Wednesday the 24th of March.
Now I've never had problems with Telus, really, although I know by reputation and from conversations with their brighter employees that really it's no different than Shaw. Same shit, different pile. But maybe I'll get lucky.
The modem arrives after a day, impressive.
But at 11:00 today, waiting for the installer to show, I get impatient and call to confirm that there is to be an installer to show up.
20 minutes wait to speak to a person. 20 minutes. And when I do I ask him if he'll confirm that I have an appointment for an installer to show up today, but he hums and haws and wants to discuss the parcel that arrived for me in the mail, wants to know if want to try to set it up now, wants to know if I have multiple jacks in the house (shouldn't this be on their computers?), and after 10 minutes of discussing dollar store splitters and my limited technical knowledge I manage to get him to confirm that an installer will be showing up in the 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM timeslot.
I assure him that I'll be fine, that's all I wanted to know. I somehow got the times wrong, I was expecting the installer between 9:00 and 11:00.
I wait until 12:00, 12:15, still no installer.
I call Telus again, they're having a problem with their phone lines, they give me a number to call for internet assistance.
Promising.
I call the internet number and wait, again, after talking through their automated voice message machine, another 15 minutes to speak to a human.
I ask about the installer. Where could he be? Hopefully he hasn't been hurt, should I call 911? The agent puts me on hold for another 5 minutes. She comes back. She too wants to talk about my package from Telus, do I want to set up the package with her? I tell her no, I just want to confirm that an installer is coming out....hold again....back...yes, an installer should be coming out, there's an appointment booked....Is he coming out I ask her again, but she wants to talk about splitters and setting up my new modem....I ask the uncomfortable question again, is there an installer coming out, if so when, if not, why was I told there would be?
Hold again.
And it dawns on me, I've switched companies, but I've really just moved the same shit into a different pile.
When she comes back she informs me that no installer will be coming out.
I wonder how I got so confused. I confirm the appointment, yes, it's there, but no installer will be showing up.
I set it up myself. It's easy enough, there was a splitter in the package, as well as cable and all sorts of noise filters and Ethernet accessories. And the internet works fine, as good as Shaw's, certainly, and I'm on the bottom package of Telus and was previously on the Top package at Shaw and so far have noticed no difference whatsoever in speed. And as an added advantage, the Telus modem has a wireless router built in, so no messy cables or additional fiddling with connections, so, despite themselves, their incompetent customer service, inordinate wait times and their no-show installers I'm happy.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Who's Your ISP?
- Hits: 2192
An article of note today: Bell, Canada's Other ISP, awaits a decision from the CRTC - quote:
"The regulator will hand down its decision at 9 a.m. ET after twice delaying the ruling. The decision will determine whether Bell Canada has violated the Telecommunications Act by slowing down the internet access it sells to wholesale customers." - From CBC.
Further reading here: www.saveournet.ca.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Who's Your ISP?
- Hits: 1924
It's 10:40 when the installer shows up. I feel kind of foolish, the internet now working and all, he's friendly enough and shows me the modem stats online, no problems there, then goes and checks the outside of the house. He finds a couple of faulty connectors - one at the house, one on the line, and my problems are solved.
He notes what an "Interesting" place I have. I get this when I have people over, mostly plumbers and maintenance people. "Interesting" here is a euphamism for "What a lot of mis-matched rubbish....do you ever clean?", but I'm tired of apologizing, even if I were Martha Stewart the kids would tear it apart in a weekend, and life's too short to be spent vacuuming and dusting. A bit of maintenance wouldn't hurt, but that's a habit I have yet to acquire.
But my router isn't coming back online. Probably I'm doing something wrong, but for some reason it's broadcasting well, but not picking up an IP from the modem. There may be a problem there, I'll have to do a full hard reset, there's not time today to waste troubleshooting trivial things. The internet's working, and that's what counts. Now back to work.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Who's Your ISP?
- Hits: 2002
And the modem is back online. The installer hasn't yet showed up, not due until 9:00-11:00, it was offline all day yesterday, until midnight when I went to bed. So this morning when I got up I checked, hope against hope, and it was working. I've kept the morning free and will wait for the installer, this is far too inconvenient to consider solved. But there's something about having him/her come here when it's working that rather undermines the point of it not working, hopefully they believe me....
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Who's Your ISP?
- Hits: 1925
And I'm completely offline. Once again I run through the process reseting my modem, bypassing router, no luck. So I again call Shaw, 1-1-2-2, and quickly am connected to another helpful Analyst. We run through the process of trying to reset modem, several times, nothing brings it back online. I suspect there's an issue with the cable outside, it's snowed, the connection I've always suspected is bad. But I say nothing, last time the installer showed up he pooh-poohed the idea. My signal was just fine, he said.
So after several resets we can't bring the modem back online, the router is now obviously not the problem. She books me a service call for the next day, 9-11:00 AM slot. And I have the unafforded luxury of a computer free day....