Friday, December 7, 2007

A house blocked my Broadband

My internet connection has been intermittent for a couple of weeks now but I assumed that the service provider was having some problems with their server or something. I was never overly interrupted so I let it be. Then yesterday, right after posting that video of Aaron, I lost all connectivity. (Btw, Thank You for all the wonderful comments.) I tried all sorts of things for a couple of hours before calling technical support. They sent two guys over at 5pm and they soon figured out that it was the house being constructed behind us that was blocking my signal. I'm with a wireless broadband service. I blogged about the same house back in October but I guess they didn't complete all the walls until yesterday! Here's the culprit now:


The broadband service is wireless to my house and has an antennae on the roof to receive the signals. So, the guys came back today to move the antennae to a different location. Here they are: Antennae and Technician:


Everything was relocated by 11am but I still had no connection. It took them until 5pm, and many trips up and down the roof, to figure out that my humble Ethernet cable was busted. I'm WIRELESS TO the house but still WIRED INTO the house.

They might have taken a full 24 hours to troubleshoot and fix the problem but I'm completely satisfied with their service. They responded quickly, focused on the job, were polite, managed to play with Aaron AND it was all free.

4 comments:

Bilbo said...

Wow! That's customer service. When I have a problem with my (fiber-optic) broadband service, I have to go through about sixteen levels of online discussions with an automated system before ever talking to a live person, who usually turns out to be in India. It's almost unheard-of to get a problem that involves a visit to the house resolved in under 24 hours. You're special!

NomadicExpat said...

Ah, the beauty of wireless broadband -- answer to the last mile access issue for developing country -- yep, that's what I used to pitch to the media when I was doing PR for Canopy Wireless, Motorola. This is one real life example that I could use. :-)

And I do agree with Bilbo. Over in the U.S. getting through customer service is waiting for a miracle to happen. Now, getting people to come to your place and check it out, that's like winning a lottery! :-P

Hey, you should have more "problems" with your internet access -- it comes with free babysitting! ;-) Haha.

Amanda said...

Yes....thats the upside of living in a developing country. They aren't developed enough to implement (and have users understand) the 16 levels of automatic systems :) I'm lucky, and grateful.

Kellan said...

That really was great service and I'm glad you got your problem fixed - nothing can be more frustrating! Have a good weekend, Amanda. See you soon. Kellan