Technology

- great when it works, not so great at other times. That being said I wouldn't be without it which is why my recent email problems have been and still are annoying me mightily. I've been unable to connect to my email for a fortnight now and it has been to say the least frustrating. I've had several very long sessions with very pleasant people who work for the ISP to no avail. The rest of the internet is working perfectly - well, as perfectly as it ever does here which more accurately can be summed up as adequately most of the time as long as it's during the day. The email however is not and we've now reached a point where I've have exhausted their free support and am expected to pay for fixing a problem they caused. (They blocked my email because they thought I'd been hacked. I hadn't been.) I've found a work around for now but that, while useful, is also time consuming and as a result I find myself checking in on it far less frequently than usual.

This has come up at a time when we're looking into connecting to the NBN, which has at long last come to our area, and is making me question whether I still want to stay with this company. We have been with them for some time and until now we've been happy with the service and had intended to stay with them. But this is the second time in a couple of months that they've cut me off  and then had problems reconnecting me. Don't get me wrong because I'm more than happy they are taking care of perceived security issues but the least I expect is that they should be able to restore it once it's been checked out or corrected. I also expect that fixing a problem they caused should be without cost to me. That's reasonable, isn't it.

So I'm looking around. There are a multitude of companies offering NBN services and the thing we really need to consider here - quite apart from cost which is obviously important - is that internet access and speed are functional. We live in a bit of a black spot for internet connectivity - something to do with our being on the edge of the areas covered by two different phone exchanges I'm told although whether that's true or just an excuse I have no idea. Honestly I don't care about the reason or reasons. What I want is a usable internet connection with reasonable speed that can be accessed at  different points in the house at any time, something that at present is variable at best during the day and after about 5 PM vanishes everywhere except when I'm sitting right next to the router.

So there's the problem. What the answer is I'm not sure yet but I've been hearing very good things about fixed wireless - and there's a local company which has been recommended to me by several of my neighbours. I've enquired and we are apparently in an excellent position to access this so I guess that's my next stop.