Worry about your ISP then worry about your cables!

What a wonderful day this has been. I have spent most of it dealing with the ISP that provides me with a link to the outside world. If only I was not technologically aware it would be OK.

I have been having some problems with a line drop out sometimes as little as a few seconds would go by and then the line would drop out and I would have to ring the service provider again.

Naturally given the amount of money you pay for a service you ring up the help desk to obtain help. Equally naturally they ask for your details and then make you feel as though the fault is all on your side because after all you are the customer!

The first thing to do is to make sure that all of your settings are demolished because they may be corrupt. So you do what you are told by whoever is on the line and you make sure that you follow their instructions to the letter, notwithstanding that there are shortcuts you could take that you know about. This is followed by a cheery, "Have a nice Easter" and when you hang up and try again nothing has changed the line drops out again.

So, try number two. This time a different chap is on the line and he tries to be helpful by giving you some interesting commands for your modem. "This will stabilise your modem", he says helpfully. Once again you go off line with him and back on line with the provider to experience yet another line drop out.

Try number three (this is usually the charm). Well, this fellow has even more grandiose ideas he changes a whole series of settings including that one that I recognise from an earlier childhood - it actually sets my modem back to a V34 setting when in fact I should be getting a V90 setting with the modem that is sitting happily under my bonnet. Nevertheless I humour him as well and dial up one more time - only to experience a drop out again.

Not being a happy chappy I next ring Telstra to test the line. The line is OK.

I check my own connections using hyperterminal and find that I am OK with this as well.

So finally I go back into the connections settings, relying this time on my own dim and distant memories of how I used to do the settings before I became so lazy that I ring a help desk and reset all of the options that I had before these children started to muck around with my settings. I then go around the house and check every phone outlet that I have to make sure that there are no lose connections - after all we all KNOW that any lose connections can contribute to line noise and that this is likely to cause a drop out.

Sure enough, in the main bedroom I find the cause of the problem - a loose connection no doubt caused by the cleaner who cleaned a little too energetically, I suspect.

Pushing the lugs in properly I start my connection again and lo and behold no more problem.

Perhaps I should ring the service provider back again and tell them what the real problem was?

Nah. let someone else have fun with the children playing with their settings.

Sometimes I think it was a wise thing that I took up IT as a hobby.

A message for the rest of you. Check the cables FIRST then you can save money on all the local call costs!