wrangling

Three weeks ago my interweb connection suddenly dies. No symptoms, no warning. My wireless router-modem lights up all the right green lights—Power, LANs, DSL—but no green for go on Internet. Diagnostics tells me a cable is not connected. I know that every one of a Medusa’s-head of cables is connected.

I call Telstra’s support line to no avail. So for three weeks I use my MM dongle, shuffle documents and blog posts between my off-line desktop and the MM laptop in the dining-room. The time has come to get this sorted. I stab at the buttons for the Telstra support line one last time.

A syrupy Samuel Johnson sound-alike voice assures me he’ll get me sorted, leads me through all manner of tests, eliminating possible causes of my problem. Have I installed a new phone recently? How many outlets are there in the house? Is there a Telstra-approved splitter on each phone? “When you’re ready, say Continue.” Continue, continue, continue I bellow at my phone.

He sounds as perplexed as an automated voice can when nothing sorts my problem. Between continues I’m climbing under my desk to check cable connections, disconnecting each phone outlet in each of for rooms, grappling behind my monitor to find the serial number on the underside of my modem. All this while moaning with back spasm.

After 48 minutes Mr Automaton gives up and connects me to a flesh-and-blood technician. He runs more tests on my line, my modem, guides me through tests I run in the black config section of my computer. He despairs and connects me to Cisco in America, the manufacturers of my modem. A disembodied American woman says my modem is just out of its 12-month warranty; would I like to pay or tear my hair out?

I thank her and hang up. I pull out some drawers, find my old modem. Under the desk I go again, blinking torch leaving me blacked and snarled in cables under there. More groping across the desk feeding cords through the hole in the farthest corner behind the monitor. I fire the old girl up.

The Macbook Air remembers the old modem, has memorised the password—ten dots—and I’m online. The desktop PC asks for the password. Ten dots won’t cut it. Somewhere from the depths of my cranium comes a wild guess: the street where I lived in Bendigo and a year. No go. I try the previous year. Well now, would you believe it?

Fifteen minutes later I’ve trained two smartphones and the iPad to switch onto the new-old Wi-Fi connection. I’m an IT wizard. Fuck Telstra. Fuck you, Samuel.

Rock on.