Emergency Internet

On Friday I noticed a Telstra van pull up out the front of the next door neighbour. The tech guy hopped out, opened up the pit and started to work. Then my internet and phone line dropped out.

I went out to ask what was happening and he looked bemused. He said he was working on another person’s house, nothing to do with ours. I told him I had no phone line, and thus no net. He looked harried and dialled my number from the pit. “It’s dialling, nothing I did caused the problem.” and with that he packed up and left, telling me to call faults. I rang my number – it rang and rang on the mobile – but no ringing inside, no dial tone when I picked up the phone and no net connection.

Obviously it must have been the world’s biggest coincidence that my phone line disconnected itself by accident at the exact same time Mr Rude Technician was working in the pit outside my house. A Telstra rep on Twitter even told me the tech must know what he’s talking about and to contact faults. Yeah. Right.

So we’ve been without a phone for a couple of days, which is no biggy, but not having the net makes it very difficult for me to make a living. Thankfully I have a great mother in law. She had an old USB modem from an old plan she was on that has a few gig of bandwidth on it. The modem doesn’t work but Android to the rescue. I’ve plugged her SIM in to my phone, set it up as a mobile hotspot and have some sort of connection to get me through. Telstra have promised to have the problem fixed by close of business on Monday so this temporary measure should be able to get me through.

Lessons learnt :

• Don’t trust a Telstra tech to know his stuff
• Android phones rock.
• Never throw away old SIM cards
• Marrying the right woman has many unforseen benefits