Are my internet troubles ever gonna be fixed?

So, this post is just gonna continue the ISP trouble saga.

For anyone out of the loop, my ISP sucks and because I live in a dorm, I can’t get a different internet provider. Technically, an internet connection is included in my rental contract but it’s just not working correctly with the router frequently disconnecting and speed often going down drastically to the point where writing posts and e-mails to complain is borderline impossible.

Writing Blog Posts and Streaming is hard with these issues.

Heck, writing blog posts has actually been a real challenge. Frequently, when the internet disconnects, Grammarly glitches out and stops working while still displaying red marks here and there. That’s not a Grammarly issue but an internet issue.

At the same time, I can’t save or publish any drafts while my internet is gone and most of the time, WordPress’ editor here will not reconnect on its own but the backup that was made may be quite old… so… I basically have to reload the page after copy+pasting everything I wrote.

Again, it’s annoying but nothing too bad, I guess. I can deal with it.

Anyone that watches my stream will also know that I have internet connection issues by the number of disconnects the stream faces… but hey #FuckDormInternet is a running gag, so that’s nice!

The internet connection affects me beyond streams and blogging, obviously.

More importantly, though, the internet troubles will make university harder, especially in the face of the possibility that the next semester will be conducted online/at home again. I mean, literally, there will be another online semester (possibly!) because of the ongoing pandemic.

Furthermore, my partner moved away and we are now in a long-distance relationship. That on its own can work but with internet troubles, it probably won’t be too easy, y’know?

Gas Prices and Rent Increases

What’s more, is that our rent is increasing soon because of gas prices and whatnot increasing.

But hey, gas is included in the rent, so it makes sense that it gets more expensive to live here – but the internet connection is also included in the rent according to the contract and it’s not working but we still pay for it. Where does that money go? Why do we still have to pay for it?

Verbraucherzentrale

A friend wanted to talk to the “Vebraucherzentrale” (uh customer protection agency or something?) but it costs 20 bucks for 15 minutes of consultation… that’s super expensive! What the heck? And e-mail support just points you to appointments in person that are super pricey. That’s not customer-friendly!

Can I go to the Verbraucherzentrale about the Verbraucherzentrale?

But hey, apparently we have a new provider… but that provider needs to be hooked up to the existing Servers in our dorm basement… but those servers are locked and our dorm admins need to get the key which is apparently taking a while.

Communication is important!

My main issue with all of this is the way that everything has been communicated thus far.

The issues started somewhere around nearly two years ago and when I mailed the dorm admins about it, they pointed me towards the IT service. When I mailed them about the issues, they pointed me to the ISP. When I mailed the ISP, they pointed me to the dorm admins.

I didn’t feel taken seriously at all. Something was done about it only after many other people in the dorm (arguably because I asked them to) also mailed the dorm admins and the ISP about these issues.

The Time-Line

Suddenly, they’re working on it. “Until Christmas, there will be a fix” – they said. It wasn’t fixed after all.

“It is taking longer than expected”, they then said, “so it will be fixed by March”. It wasn’t fixed by March.

They then told us that it will take four weeks… but then they wrote to us that the solution they were going for won’t be ready until Easter.

After Easter, it wasn’t fixed. In fact, they told us that we can expect a working connection in the second half of June/Early July.

Guess what happened. Well,… I won’t need to spell it out since it’s September and since I’m writing this post right now.

No Communication is better than Flawed Communication…?

After that mail they sent us in MID-JULY that the issues still haven’t been fixed and that they don’t know what to do, they promised to not make any more promises about the date and stuff. That was in Mid-July. Apparently, they’re working on it.

Well,… we didn’t get any other e-mails or notices from them since then. My several e-mails have been ignored. The same goes for other people’s e-mails. It’s annoying.

Suddenly, we don’t even get the impression that they’re working on it.

Some people have already moved out without ever having had a working internet connection. At the same time, we were promised to get our money back for those months with the issues once it’s fixed. The fuck?

My partner moved out of the dorm and I’m not sure if she’ll get her money back.

A Light at the end of the Tunnel

A friend of mine actually talked to the boss of the elusive dorm regime.

Another part of the communication (or lack thereof) is that the people we can e-mail are not responsible for the internet.

The IT Service is there to fix stuff but if the servers and whatnot aren’t working, they can’t do that. They just can offer advice as to why the router isn’t working. “Have you tried turning it off for 60 seconds before turning it on again” and stuff.

The big boss of the dorm administration, however, has been sick at times or busy… too busy to do his job, it seems. I digress. I’m being on him as well, I know, but it’s frustrating.

Rather, my friend got to call him and they talked. Apparently, it’s just a matter of getting that key for the servers from the old internet provider and then it will be fixed. He apparently has been ashamed of the way they handled it and he’s been anxious about writing another e-mail, promising an end to the issues when in reality, he doesn’t know if it will fix anything.

What is good communication anyway?

In my opinion, they should have never promised a specific date for the fix. They should have communicated frequently about the status of the attempt of fixing the issues without promising an early day.

A lot of the e-mails offer a solution or show what their plan is but especially the early e-mails were putting the blame on us, the people that live here.

Apparently, we needed to turn off DHCP. The IT Service people, however, told me that my router is newer and that I don’t need to do that.

At some point, they said that we’re using too much of the internet or something but in reality, people were going back to their parents to be able to use it at all – all the while paying rent for an apartment they can’t use because university stuff has been online.

Shifting the blame, dodging responsibility, ignoring e-mails, overpromising, and then disappointing people – before eventually just not communicating at all. They went full circle from “no communication” to “flawed communication” and back to “no communication”.

In communication between humans, you talk about what the issue is, how you’re feeling, and what you think may be a solution to fix the issue. Then the other party also states what the issue is in their opinion, how they’re feeling, and what they think about said solution/what solution they may deem appropriate.

In the end, we didn’t hear what the issue is but we were able to hear that they don’t think that they were the issue.

Eventually, they acknowledged that the issue is technical and that it needs fixing but instead of giving frequent updates on it, they continued to postpone information until a lot of people complained about it.

I’m not sure how to feel about that.

The ISP Trouble Saga continues…

This post was first published on Indiecator by Dan Indiecator aka MagiWasTaken. If you like what you see here and want to see more, you can check me out on Twitch and YouTube as well. If you find this post on a website other than Indiecator.org, please write an e-mail to me. Thank you!