Internet Connection Blues

For the last couple of weeks, or what actually seems to be a lot longer, our Internet connection at home has been coming and going, and with every passing day it seems like it's more going than coming unfortunately.

This has been really frustrating for me in particular, since I am trying to write and publish articles here on Associated Content, and to keep up with emails and reading articles written by other authors, and then of course to promote my articles on other web sites.

This is further complicated by the fact that we have my fiancee's daughter, her husband, six month old baby and two small dogs living with us (it's a long story - see A Change Of Plans), my fiancee has a laptop and so do they, so when the Internet is actually working, there are three of us trying to share what is hardly better than a dial-up speed connection.

How did this all start?

I think I had better go back to the beginning, so that things fall into place and begin to make sense.

It was late October when we moved into our 1950's house that we rent from some of my fiancee's good friends. The house used to belong to her Mother, but they kept it after she passed away, and it has been rented out for a few years. As is typical of many rented properties, some parts of the house have been re-furbished, like windows and doors, but not necessarily to the same standard you would use if you were living in the house yourself.

When we moved in, we arranged for the Internet and home phones to be connected, using our existing company PlusNet, who have provided a good service in the past. The previous tenants had used some now defunct cable service for the phones, and so there were sockets in several rooms, but since PlusNet uses phone lines provided by BT (British Telecom), they had to arrange for one of their engineers to come out and check the line, before we could get the phone and Internet services activated.

We had been moved in about a week before the engineer came to check the phone line, and it was while I was at work. We actually want the phone service to come into the house in the third bedroom, which we are using as an office, but the engineer would only check and connect to the existing BT phone socket, which is in the hallway, next to the kitchen door.

I arrived home from work to find the phone line had been activated, however there is not an electrical socket for a good six feet from the phone socket, which limited us to using an old plug-in phone that had been left behind in the house, and which was to put it mildly rather disgusting.

I therefore had to rig up an extension cord from the closest power socket, which is right by the front door, at the other end of the hallway, and this goes under some plastic carpet protectors, all the way along the hall floor, and allows us to plug in a portable phone and the router for the Internet.

To use our desktop computer in the office, I had to buy a USB wireless adapter, since our printer is attached to the desktop computer, and this is the only way that we can print, other than carrying our laptops upstairs and plugging them into the printer, or printing onto PDF's and transferring them using a Flash Drive. Neither of these options is practical in the long term.

Well we have managed for a while, although the Internet connection was often not as fast as we would have hoped for, but once our house guests moved in three weeks ago, the Internet began to get slower and start to disconnect, despite the fact that PlusNet had about the same time told us that they were boosting our speed.

For the last two weeks it's been just horrible, with the connection barely functioning, and if someone rings the phone, the connection just drops completely. Yes, before you ask, we do have the appropriate filters in place, but I think the signal is so poor than the line can't handle both phone and Internet. If you pick up the phone, it crackles like it was thirty years old, so it's obvious that it's the line. Last weekend we barely had a connection at all for most of the weekend, with it failing and then being off for hours at a time.

The BT engineer was scheduled to come out and take a look, and he came last Monday morning. Apparently he found a fault on the telephone line and switched it to a new one, but he couldn't change the location of the phone socket, that would require us to order that, and it's £120 or close to $200. Ouch!

When the engineer left, the connection was supposed to be two or three times faster, and it was a bit faster for a short time, but then it started to disconnect yet again unfortunately.

I think that I have found what may be causing the problems, because sometimes when the Internet connection drops, it's when someone comes in or out of the front door of the house. The old telephone cable goes through the door frame, and it's likely that the wiring is affected by the movement of the door. The other night I got my fiancee mad because I kept opening and shutting the front door in despair, desperately wanting to get online to publish more articles, but the connection never came back on.

Last night, the connection was very slow, and then about 8pm it went. Despite my trying everything, it would not come back on, and it was not on this morning either. I am limited in how much time I can spend at work writing and publishing, plus I cannot promote everything at work, and so my targets for the month are already falling behind, plus I am losing precious page views as a result.

This morning there was still no connection, and probably I won't see much of one all weekend. I have no idea when the engineer will be returning, but having set myself a goal of 500 page views a day by the end of the month, and having been well on the way, I now see my chances of hitting that target fast disappearing unfortunately, especially if I can't get connected this weekend.

At the same time, my frustration is rising, as I want to reach the next Clout level on Associated Content, and keep moving up the ladder.

I did think of asking my fiancee to use the back door, but decided that this suggestion might be met with a black look, and threw the idea in the bin! If only my neighbors didn't all have their connections locked down as well - that could help - a bit naughty but...

So this weekend I am not really sure what I will be doing yet. Much depends on the state of our Internet connection.

Sunday is Mothers Day here in the UK, and so tomorrow we are going to see my fiancee's parents, who live about five miles away. We are also going out to dinner with friends on Saturday night. If the weather is kind to us I would like to go out for a walk on Sunday, and I also have some DIY jobs to complete from last weekend.

Most importantly, I still have to file my Taxes for the USA, which is rather complicated since I have earned both here and in the USA. I am not 100% sure on how to calculate the figures, and if the Internet is not available, I will not be able to get to the IRS web site to look for the forms and guides.

So, in a lot of ways, our Internet connection - or disconnection - holds the key to the weekend, how we spend our time, and what sort of mood I will be in.

Wish us luck please, and if you do enjoy the photographs of England that I have been publishing lately, please pray for a good connection so that I can publish some more. If you are not a fan of my photographs - no need to pray that I don't upload any more ok!

Finally, having written this article, I have to publish it, and the last screen of the publishing process requires me to select a topic to post it under. For something like this, what do I select?

I thought that maybe Technology would be appropriate, since this article deals with the Internet, but then since it's to do with the house and the area that I live in maybe Local would be a good choice. I decided against either of those though, and strongly considered Mental Health, Legal or even Memoirs, since if we don't get the Internet connection problems resolved soon, I am going to go crazy, or maybe do something I will later regret.

I decided finally to try and see the funny side of this problem, and so here it goes into the Humor category. If you hear the sound of crazed laughter while you read this, I might just have flipped and gone over to the other side though - so get praying quick!