- Joined
- Jun 6, 2014
- Messages
- 4,114
- Reaction score
- 1,737
No, not the Chevy Chase movie. 
Monday I was on my iPad, browsing the internet and reading the news, when at around noon I suddenly started getting the error message that "Safari could not open the requested page because it cannot establish a secure connection to the server."
After determining that it wasn't a problem with my iPad, and was happening with the iPhone as well, I went to check on the modem. Red light on the phone, blinking green and then red on the broadband. Hmm. We have one of those services where TV, internet, and "land line" phone are all coming in through the modem. Rebooted the modem, no help. Did a factory reset of the modem, no help. Used the cell phone to do a remote reset of the service, no good.
There are a couple of guys out in the street in front of our house doing something, but no signs of digging going on.
Used the cell phone to chat with support, they tried everything and could not get it working. The rep said he would ship us a new modem to fix the issue.
Anticipating that the modem is not the issue, I told the rep about the guys in the street in front of our house, and that I was worried that they might be digging in the neighborhood and had cut through the line. I suggested that we really needed to have someone come out in person to check everything, determine what's going on, and fix it.
The earliest opening was Tuesday at noon, so on Monday afternoon I took my MacBook Air to my sisters to use her internet for a few hours. On Monday night I had to settle for using a cell phone, except I couldn't log in to the forums because I forgot my password, so I could browse but not reply or moderate.
Tuesday the support tech comes out and determines that the problem is with the line itself, not anything on our property or inside the house. Also, on Tuesday there was a larger work crew in front of the house, digging in the yard across the street and laying some kind of cable-- possibly fiber optics, as that was what the lady at the city suggested might be going on when I called on Monday afternoon to see if anyone could tell me what the guys in front of our house had been doing. The support tech says he's going to put in a work order to get the line fixed.
"It sounds like you're saying that it isn't going to be fixed today," I said calmly, hoping to get more details.
"It's still early in the day, so they might be able to get it taken care of today," he replied. Whew, let's hope so!
A few hours later, another tech arrives to thoroughly check out and fix the line. After an hour or two, including going down the street and around the corner to where our line comes from, he comes back to break the bad news. "They cut through your line and it's going to have to be completely replaced. There are four lines, and somehow they managed to cut through yours but not through the other three." He says he's going to go back down the street to see if he can cobble together some kind of working connection to hopefully restore our service, but that the real repairs will need to be done the next day (today). Whatever he did, we got the internet back for about 1 minute, then we lost it again.
This morning I get two back-to-back texts from the company. "We ran into a problem and won't be able to do the repairs today." And then "We hope to make the repairs and restore your service within the next 14 days." That's paraphrased, but is essentially what the texts said.
14 days without TV, phone, and internet, except for what I can do on the cell phone! Holy moley! You can't really appreciate how heavily we rely on the internet and cable TV until you're forced to do without it for a few days or-- gasp-- a few weeks.
Thankfully, a work crew did show up this afternoon to put in a new line to replace the one that had gotten cut. So now we have TV, phone, and internet back again. Modern life can now resume!
Monday I was on my iPad, browsing the internet and reading the news, when at around noon I suddenly started getting the error message that "Safari could not open the requested page because it cannot establish a secure connection to the server."
After determining that it wasn't a problem with my iPad, and was happening with the iPhone as well, I went to check on the modem. Red light on the phone, blinking green and then red on the broadband. Hmm. We have one of those services where TV, internet, and "land line" phone are all coming in through the modem. Rebooted the modem, no help. Did a factory reset of the modem, no help. Used the cell phone to do a remote reset of the service, no good.
There are a couple of guys out in the street in front of our house doing something, but no signs of digging going on.
Used the cell phone to chat with support, they tried everything and could not get it working. The rep said he would ship us a new modem to fix the issue.
Anticipating that the modem is not the issue, I told the rep about the guys in the street in front of our house, and that I was worried that they might be digging in the neighborhood and had cut through the line. I suggested that we really needed to have someone come out in person to check everything, determine what's going on, and fix it.
The earliest opening was Tuesday at noon, so on Monday afternoon I took my MacBook Air to my sisters to use her internet for a few hours. On Monday night I had to settle for using a cell phone, except I couldn't log in to the forums because I forgot my password, so I could browse but not reply or moderate.
Tuesday the support tech comes out and determines that the problem is with the line itself, not anything on our property or inside the house. Also, on Tuesday there was a larger work crew in front of the house, digging in the yard across the street and laying some kind of cable-- possibly fiber optics, as that was what the lady at the city suggested might be going on when I called on Monday afternoon to see if anyone could tell me what the guys in front of our house had been doing. The support tech says he's going to put in a work order to get the line fixed.
"It sounds like you're saying that it isn't going to be fixed today," I said calmly, hoping to get more details.
"It's still early in the day, so they might be able to get it taken care of today," he replied. Whew, let's hope so!
A few hours later, another tech arrives to thoroughly check out and fix the line. After an hour or two, including going down the street and around the corner to where our line comes from, he comes back to break the bad news. "They cut through your line and it's going to have to be completely replaced. There are four lines, and somehow they managed to cut through yours but not through the other three." He says he's going to go back down the street to see if he can cobble together some kind of working connection to hopefully restore our service, but that the real repairs will need to be done the next day (today). Whatever he did, we got the internet back for about 1 minute, then we lost it again.
This morning I get two back-to-back texts from the company. "We ran into a problem and won't be able to do the repairs today." And then "We hope to make the repairs and restore your service within the next 14 days." That's paraphrased, but is essentially what the texts said.
14 days without TV, phone, and internet, except for what I can do on the cell phone! Holy moley! You can't really appreciate how heavily we rely on the internet and cable TV until you're forced to do without it for a few days or-- gasp-- a few weeks.
Thankfully, a work crew did show up this afternoon to put in a new line to replace the one that had gotten cut. So now we have TV, phone, and internet back again. Modern life can now resume!
