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Thursday 26 May 2016

Normal service will resume as soon as possible

Back when I was young (in what my wife calls 'back in eighteen hundred and frozen stiff') TV service was prone to breaks in transmission. When that happened, a notice would appear on screen with the message ...
Normal service will resume as soon as possible
Recently Sue and I had grown very dissatisfied with the service provided by our ISP (Internet Service Provider) and actually went as far as to cancel our existing contract and to sign up with a new provider.

This proved to be big mistake. The new ISP's service used a different cable system to deliver its service, and after several phone calls, a fair bit of stress, and several trips to the company's local branches, we ended up cancelling our new contract and returning the router that they had sold us. I then went back to our previous provider cap-in-hand and asked if the cancelled contract could be reinstated. (We had an overlap in the contracts so that the old contract still had almost a fortnight to run.)

Not only was our existing provider more than willing to rescind the cancellation, but they also reduced the monthly cost of our contract and agreed to send us a new and much faster router for free. I am now waiting for the new router to arrive today by courier. Once it has, I will set it up, activate it, and if everything goes well, there should be no breaks in our Internet connect.

The important element of that last sentence is 'if everything goes well'. I have been using IT equipment for many years, and I have yet to install a new piece of equipment or program without at least one or two glitches occurring. If I do have problems, and it takes a bit of time to sort them out, please could my regular blog readers imagine that the old TV screen message is there until the problems are overcome?

Latest news!

The courier finally delivered the new router a few minutes after 6.00pm, and by 7.30pm it had been set up, activated, and was working! Normal service appears to have resumed!

15 comments:

  1. Good luck I hate anything to do with techno ! , Tony

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A.W. Kitchen (Tony),

      I'm still waiting for the new router to be delivered. Once it arrives, the 'fun' can start!

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
  2. So great are IT standards - so many to choose from!

    As for the sign - I like http://sd.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/i/keep-calm-normal-service-will-resume-shortly.png it even has a cat on it - perfect for Internet issues :-)

    Good luck getting it sorted though.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ADB,

      Thanks for the wishing me good luck!

      Anything with a cat on it goes down well in our house as well as on the Internet!

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
  3. Damn computers, we need them today though.....Good Luck!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ray Rousell,

      How very true ... and thanks for the best wishes!

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
  4. Hi BOB- yes, we've just had our National Broard Band (NBN)installed- They disconected our ADSL Services on the day the NBN was to be fitted - they missed the fitting day and as a result we went without Internet and Phone line services for five days! Fortunate we had a Mobile Phone. Also- several months back we were told that the NBN would be installed FREE - well- we had to have the services of a Technician to install the new and additional caballing and connectors...all up $240 for the Technician and $120 for the additional cabels to Computer and Phones...Yikes! So all up it has cost $360 to have the computer GO a little Faster. Not very Happy. Regards. KEV.
    p.s., must admit the Computer NET is a lot faster - it did have a speed of '1' on the old system...now it has a speed of '25' - a lot faster!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. KEV,

      Well it is now gone 4.15pm ... and I'm still waiting for the courier to deliver the new router. Perhaps he is working at 20mps rather than at the 50mps we have been promised!

      It is amazing how often 'free' actually means 'this is going to cost you'. When I get the new router and I have set it up, I have to pay an 'activation' charge of £9.99 so that someone, somewhere can send a 'ping' to it to activate it. Sounds like money for old rope ... but I've got to pay to get back on the Internet!

      All the best with your new broadband connection,

      Bob

      Delete
  5. Back in the day when I was still working as an electronic engineer, the computer people would come around periodically to "update our software". We would all utter a loud groan as we knew that it would now take the minimum of a week to get our computers working as wwell as they had been before the "update". This always cost the project many wasted manhours.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dick Bryant,

      How many time in your working life have you thought 'if it ain't broke, why are you 'fixing' it?' I know that I have every time an 'upgrade' was deemed 'necessary' ... usually by someone who did not ever have to use the system that was being upgraded; we always had problems for weeks (and sometimes months) afterwards!

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
  6. Good luck - I'm sure that this is a rite of passage!
    Cheers, Peter

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Peter Douglas,

      I need the good luck ... especially as I have a fair idea whose 'passage' I will want to stick it 'right' into if I cannot get it to work properly!

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete
  7. Loki Greathall,

    Looks like I'm going to need it as I'm still waiting for the new router to be delivered ... and it is almost 6.00pm!

    All the best,

    Bob

    ReplyDelete
  8. As a former IT guy, I have nothing to say express my confidence that it will all turn out alright in the end.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ross Mac,

      I'm still experiencing a few minor problems ... but they are gradually being sorted out!

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete

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