Why is getting DSL broadband at home so hard? Andy has had trouble with Verizon in the US, and I’ve just ended my 10 day broadband drought after a few rounds of the “blame game”. It’s your telco, no it’s your ISP’s fault, no it’s your router. The technician calls me at 1.30pm today out of the blue just as I am going into a meeting to say he is at my house and wants to get inside to look at our internal wiring. Err, I’m at work, can we reschedule for 4pm and I’ll come home early to meet you. Nope, you need to call the freephone number and reschedule. Reschedule? I never scheduled this appointment you just turned up on YOUR schedule. After asking him that he was 100% sure that nothing was wrong at their end and he was confident that it could only be the “internal wiring” I rang to try and reschedule. Sorry, not my department and the other department has gone home call your ISP and ask them to call us so that we can call our engineering contractor. What the…? Anyway, I decided I would try plugging in the DSL modem one more time just in case, and magically it is all working now, even though nothing was wrong at their end. Here’s the thing, if it is their fault, they can’t charge you, if it is “internal wiring” they charge you a call out fee. What’s the bet they would have poked around for 10 minutes if I had been home to let them in and blame our internal wiring so they could justify the fee.

I chose not to go with Telecom for my broadband, and you can’t help but feel that they could be actively trying to make it difficult if you choose a competitor. I’m an experienced software developer who used to work for an ISP and understands how all this stuff works. How many Joe Punter’s just give up because it is too hard, and we wonder why we New Zealand has one of the lowest percentage uptake of broadband in the OECD? Mystery solved. I’m off the fence on my views regarding breaking up Telecom, let’s do it. Maybe we should just nationlise it again, they basically behave like a public sector organisation anyway.

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