A Matter of Perspective

I should have been enjoying my new high-speed fibre optic cable broadband this evening, but that was not to be. I'd been told to expect a phone call from the installer an hour or so before he'd arrive, but the UPC guys just arrived on the doorstep without making the call. I showed them where I wanted the connection point and they went about their business, doing a surprisingly neat job of drilling the wall and bringing the cable into the house.

That was the end of the good stuff, though. I chatted with them when they'd connected the modem, asking questions about the connection protocol and what settings I'd need to enter to bypass their wireless router and use my own. They were surprisingly vague about it all, which didn't impress me too much. Also, I was surprised when they said it would be an hour or so before my connection was 'activated', that they wouldn't still be here when that happened, and that there was no way apart from trial and error to know if activation had occurred. All that was bad enough, but things got worse as they stood upstairs keeping an eye on the modem lights, waiting for the Online light to stop blinking. It didn't stop, they contacted the mothership, and left, telling me there was a fault on the line which would need to be investigated by UPC's technicians. Once that was sorted out, they said they'd come back again to complete the installation. So, not a very good introduction to my new service provider.

My mate Derek had called in for coffee and chat and was here while the broadband guys did their stuff. We had a grand old chat, and it was really only when he was leaving that I realised what a lovely day it was. So I got my act together, walked to Killester DART station and hopped on a train to Sutton for a bit of a blip session. I didn't spend too long out and about because I wanted to be back for live coverage of the Apple Event from San Francisco (which turned out to be a big disappointment).