The Wifi Story

 On 9 August, we had a chance to go into the Vodafone store to start the process of getting connected at our new place. Because we'd been staying here at the new place and going to the old place on the small bus every weekday, we had just a couple hours there to do any errands that needed to be done as well as the packing for the journey home. Since the bus is small, we were limited in how much we could take each time, but I'm pretty good at packing as much as possible into the available space, so we managed to haul a fair bit each time.

On this day, we finished in enough time to do Vodafone. The woman on duty that day looked up our account, noted that the contract had expired, said there would be no problem stopping that one and getting the new one started. She asked when we wanted the existing account to terminate and we told her either the 19th or 20th. She said that was fine. She then proceeded to collect info for the new account. She told us that we would get a modem in the post. When we asked her why we couldn't simply keep our old modem, she replied that we couldn't and could just return that one to the store. According to her, once we had the new modem, Bill would get an email telling him the line was live and we could just plug it in. Now I figured we were in the realm of fantasy, because it never works like that. Not to mention the fact that since we don't have smartphones, there would be no way for Bill to check email once the old account was no longer live. But there was no point arguing. I was pretty sure things were not going to be that simple and I knew I would just deal with things as they arose. 

The modem came a couple days later and when we found the socket behind the two-seater, I was sure the woman in the store was delusional. It was an ancient thing. I knew we would be getting a visit from a tech person.

On the following Monday (16 August) , the tech guy (Guy 1--there will be more guys in this story) was waiting for us when we got off the bus. He immediately asked about whether anyone had wifi here recently. He proceeded to talk endlessly about how hard it is to get connections from down the road (at the exchange, I guess) to the building. He knows this from experience. He kept repeating that it was a two man job and once added that he was just one man. Quite. 😂 He looked at some stuff in a box in the stairwell and came to tell us he couldn't do it, because it's a two man job and he's just one man, so it would be Monday or Tuesday of this week. OK.

As it turned out, the idea that it was a two man job was overly optimistic. This little job required 3 companies, one woman in India or Pakistan, and 5 men, with a cameo appearance by some guy named Patrick Gallagher, whoever he is. Why he was a part of this I can only guess!

Then Tuesday, Bill got a call from Vodafone saying someone would be here the following day and would call half an hour before they arrived. That was a surprise, since Guy 1 had said that it would be Monday or Tuesday of this week. But Bill went to Dungloe alone to vacuum and do some other cleaning and I stayed here waiting for a call and putting things away, organising cupboards, etc as I did so. After Bill got home, Guy 1 called and said someone would be here Monday or Tuesday. On Friday, Bill got a text reminding him that his appt with Open Eir was Monday. How Eir got involved with this, I do not know.

Monday (23 August) Guy 1 arrived and called Bill. I went to open the door downstairs, which locks when it shuts. He was sitting in his KN van (subcontractor tech company that does installations) and said his mate was coming to help him. He sat there for a while, then drove off. Soon, he was back and parked in an area across the lane with his lights on top flashing. After a while, the mate, Guy 2, showed up. They went down toward the village and Guy 1 pried up a manhole cover in the footpath and proceeded to stick his head down there and do stuff. I think I heard power tools. Guy 2 assisted by sitting on the stone wall and watching. Soon, Guy 3 drove up in a car with 'Open Eir' emblazoned on the side. He made a comment about wanting coffee and a fucking bun, but was disappointed to learn that the cafe was closed on Mondays. Exit Guy 3.

Soon, Guys 1 and 2 entered the building. Guy 2 stayed mostly by that box in the stairwell, while Guy 1 came up and replaced the ancient Eircom phone socket with a new one and installed our modem. At some point during this process, Guy 2 came up and stood in the doorway, frowning. I said, 'Hi.' He begrudgingly said hi back, then left. Guy 1 went downstairs to confer with Guy 2, who was now back in his van. There was much tapping and swiping on a tablet. Long minutes went by. An hour and a half after Guy 1 had arrived, he ran back upstairs to tell us, 'That's you sorted!' When I pointed out that the internet light on the modem was still blinking, which indicated we had no internet, he said, 'No, the line works. As soon as it stops blinking, you'll have internet. It will stop in a few minutes or a few hours.' Then he ran downstairs and to his van and he was off.

I am sure you will not be astonished to learn that the light did not stop blinking and it was still going when we got up the next morning. While I was in the shower, Bill called Vodafone and when I came out, he was talking to a nice woman who sounded like she was from India or Pakistan. There were other voices behind her who sounded the same. It was clear that Bill was struggling both to hear and understand her. I took the phone and she walked me through various troubleshooting strategies. Blink, blink, blink. Finally, she asked me to turn the modem off, then turn it on again and leave it for half an hour, when she would call me back. When she called, nothing had changed. She said she was setting up a tech appointment. She asked me for the serial number on the modem. I gave it to her and she said, 'It doesn't match.' She asked if Bill had other accounts. I told her we'd just moved here and had returned our modem in Dungloe last week. This was all news to her. She'd been trying to troubleshoot in Dungloe! So she began again here and immediately the light stopped blinking and went off, which was what she wanted. She said there was a problem with the outside line, so she would send the tech and mark it as urgent. No one would be coming into the house, she said, since the problem was outside.

Shortly after I ended that conversation, the letting agent, Bob (Guy 4 for the purposes of this story and not his real name) called. When I answered, he said, 'Hello, is this yourself?' I was tempted to say that no, I was someone else, but I simply said I was indeed myself. 😳Then he said, 'A guy from Eir is downstairs trying to get your internet sorted. You should go down and let him in. Patrick Gallagher is a friend of mine and he'll show you who he is.' Fortunately, I was spared the task of finding both Mr Gallagher (whoever he is) and Eir Guy (Guy 5), since the latter was waiting on the porch calling Bill when I got downstairs. I told Guy 5 we have Vodafone, but resisted the urge to tell him to keep his grubby Eircon mitts off our stuff! He said Vodafone had no one on the road just then, so he would take a look, since the outside lines were fine. Up he came. He could not get anything to work. He asked who the tech guy was who was here and wanted to know if it was Peter Boyle (not the real name). Instead of saying, 'How the hell should I know?' I simply said that he did not give his name. By the time he left, he was agitated and said he was going to make some calls and find out who was here so he could tell them nothing works.

Ten minutes or so later, I glanced out the kitchen window and saw Guy 1 on the phone. He gestured to me that I should come down and let him in. I opened the door and he exclaimed that Joe from Eir had called him and that the problem had been solved. It was a Vodafone problem. He literally ran up the stairs and jubilantly declared to Bill, 'There! The light is solid! It was a Vodafone problem! It's solved now.' When I made my way upstairs, he repeated this to me and added that they were increasing the speed, so it would blink, but in 5 minutes it would be fine. Then he ran down the stairs and out the door. At least I did not have to move the two seater yet again. I also did not really expect the light to stop blinking in 5 minutes. In the end, it was more like 15 and all the lights were doing all kinds of things, but eventually it all settled down.

The story does not end there, however! One of the guys (Bill thinks it was Guy 5--Joe from Eir) called yesterday to see whether things were working here and then asked about Dungloe. He thought we were having trouble there and was on the spot! 

We went to Dungloe Vodafone today to find out why the account there has not been terminated. There was a different person there from when we went in to start the process of getting set up here and when Bill returned the modem a week ago. After I explained what was happening, this one looked up the account, said it was still live, and informed us that she could not terminate accts in the store (this is not what the first woman told us--she said she would end the account at the end of last week), but Bill should call the cancellation people directly. She provided the phone number and his security PIN, a number he did not know he had. She said to just tell them that he wants the account terminated and to avoid telling them anything else about what is going on, because it would confuse them.

When we got home and Bill tried calling the number, he could not proceed, because they wanted him to punch in his mobile phone number, which the system didn't recognize because it's not Vodafone. So he called the free phone number and had to take it from there. There was much consternation about why he didn't want to simply take the modem with him. He did not say that it was because when we asked, the woman in the store said we couldn't. Then he was placed on hold to wait for someone from the cancellation team. After several repeats of a crappy song, he spoke to another puzzled individual who was bothered about why we didn't just transfer things and talking about a 30-day notice period. More music on hold. A brief return of the voice, which said she was working on a deal to avoid penalties because of the notice period issue. More music. Twenty five minutes after the call began, the voice came back and said the account will be terminated tomorrow and because he's a good customer, the penalty would be waived. I am not sure there actually is a penalty, since we were past the end of our contract, but since everyone says something different, there's no way to know. 

Now we hope they terminate the right account! He gave the address, so fingers crossed!

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