All,

Having returned home from work on Monday evening, I fired-up my personal PC as usual but noticed that my router wasn't connecting. I checked the SAM server straight away and noticed that this internet connection (which is incidentally totally separate to my own, 'personal' internet connection) was down too. Picking up my landline to make a call to the local Telecom company, the phone wasn't working either. Not good.

Having contacted the Telecom company on my mobile, they assured me that an engineer would be at my home as soon as possible. As it transpired, this wasn't until the following Wednesday (I'd chased them several times, explaining that not only did I hold my mobile, landline and internet account with them but I also rented a Business internet connection (for S.A. / SAM) and expected a more prompt service). Anyway, the Telecom engineer called me at work to advise me that having traced the cabling from my property, it had actually been physically cut through.

I knew that work was being carried-out on the neighbouring property but obviously had no idea that it would be affecting me in any way. So, the engineer had to re-connect and re-wire all of the external cabling from my home to the local exchange - at considerable cost.

Needless to say, this has left me more than a little annoyed with the local cowboy builders and the question of who is going to settle the resulting (very large) bill for this re-wiring is ongoing.

Sincere apologies for the downtime, folks. I hope that you appreciate that it was totally out of my hands but as always, I worked as hard as possible to bring the stream back online.

Continue to enjoy.

Darran

They charge you to fix their own mistake?!

The Telecom company are going to charge for the work that they've had to carry out.

Staff from a building company perfoming work on the neighbouring property cut the line.

Surely that is between the telecoms people and the ones that cut the line. Nothing to do with you?

The Telecoms company performed work on my line - regardless of how or who actually severed the line. It's still my line and in my name.

God, that sucks.
I presume the building company who cut the line will pay up promptly so that you don't have to sue them?

PS: I did a similar thing to some internal conduit on my own block (connecting two buildings). Because it didn't involve a telco, I got some private contractors in who were there the same day, had it jerry-rigged that afternoon and fully repaired the next day. I was VERY impressed. Sadly, I've never ever seen that sort of service from a telco.

Wow... quite a story (which I just now read for the first time). I hope things resolve in your favor over time, Darran.

:o

- David Z.

Well I think its a good time to send some financial support to D...

Hi Max,

Good to see you with us again, my friend. :)

Indeed, it's definitely a good time to donate towards S.A.'s running costs but then again, in all honesty, it's always a good time to donate. ;)

Hey D,

It's good to be back!  :)