Broadbandus Interruptus
I have cable internet service and, except for the unforgivable suspension of service when AT&T severed relations with Excite! @home a couple years ago, the service has been great. You may recall that incident - the two companies played a game of corporate chicken, with the miraculous result that the only injured were us bystanders.
Anyway, Comcast took over from AT&T a few months ago, and I’ve been waiting for signs of fallout. A few weeks ago, their signal started dropping out now and then, seemingly at midday. Since I often work from home and rely on Terminal Server connections to clients, this was more than a nuisance to me, but seemed too infrequent to go through the hassle of calling support.
Finally, on Tuesday, I started losing the signal consistently, so much so that I repaired to Cafe Maree to use their WiFi signal. I feel a little bit odd sitting in a cafe, debugging Crystal reports and SQL queries, taking phone calls and stepping people through software while others are carrying on vital social exchanges or reading thoughtfully, but, hey!, the cafe needs the business right now, and I need the connection. So charge me double.
The consistently bad signal spurred me to call Comcast support, and they scheduled an onsite tech for Wednesday afternoon. I awoke Wednesday morning gratified, in a way, that the signal was still misbehaving. I headed for Cafe Maree briefly, then to a client’s, then back home in order to be available for the tech. I walk in, and guess what? The cable modem lights are on solid, have been all morning, according to my late-rising wife.
I sit through the early afternoon, hoping for the signal to drop again - sort of like a suicide vigil, yelling “jump! jump! jump!”, or being in the bathroom at the doctor’s office before an examination pleading with your nose to “bleed, dammit!” like it did all day yesterday. The tech arrived and (surprise) was very brisk and competent but, with no problem to troubleshoot, was reduced to fiddling with a couple things and, I thought, looking not a little askance at me. I felt like pleading to be believed, since I make my living in technology and tech support, but that probably would have made it worse.
So, whatever voodoo occurred to rectify this problem, it’s on for now.
