This story is about my Internet and Cable TV provider. They also provide my landline phone, but that’s Internet Protocol (IP) based and in a few years land line phones will be as much a relic as rotary dial phones.

As you might guess, I like the internet. At least when it works. The world of information and misinformation is at my fingertips. I can do research and find information on just about everything.

I’m old enough that when I was in high school and had to do research I had to go to my city’s public library. If it was something complex, I had to take public transit and go into the big city and use their library. The world was contained in paper books, paper magazines, and paper newspapers.

As a society we killed a lot of trees in our quest for knowledge.

Oh, I had to type my research papers on a typewriter. Tap…Tap…Tap…Tap… Backspace, Backspace, White Out, Tap… Tap… You get the point.

The internet changed all of that. When I went to paramedic school Personal Computers (PC) were less than ten years old and expensive. I bought one through a friend who had a friend who ran a company selling repossessed equipment from businesses that went bankrupt. Being able to type up a lot of material and then print it out made school a lot easier.

I started on line communications before Al Gore invented the internet. Dial up modems were the rage and we even had a second phone line just for that. Hi tech I tell you.

I even built some of my own computers under the tutelage of a electronic whiz friend of mine.

All of which is to say that I have some computer and internet technical capabilities and can usually find my way around a technical stuff.

Which brings me to last week. My Internet Service Provider (ISP) sent me an email offering me a newer and faster modem. No upcharge because they are cycling out their older equipment and want everyone to have new equipment.

Sign Me Up! Faster internet, terrific. Oh, and faster video streaming over my Roku equipped TVs. Even better.

So, I filled out the on line form and they shipped my new Modem/Router out via UPS. I’d have been happy to drive the ten minutes to my nearest store to pick it up.

Friday morning UPS dropped off the new Modem and I eagerly got right to the project. I powered down the old Modem/Router and unplugged all of the cables. I plugged the cables into the new box and then powered it up.

That’s about a five minute process and I just watched the light on the box change colors and blink or not blink during the process.

Great! Everything seemed to be fine. I logged onto a couple of websites on my desktop (yes I still have one) computer.

Great.

I picked up my phone pressed TALK to get a dial tone and heard nothing. Odd.

I then tried to connect my smart phone to the WiFi and got nothing. Very odd.

My ISP has decided that it’s more efficient, which I think means less expensive for them, to use an app on either an iPhone or Android phone. Soooo, I downloaded the app onto my phone and launched it.

Only nothing seemed to work. I clicked on the “Chat” button for technical support. It launched sent my some what were supposed to be humorous messages and then… went blank.

I hunted on line and found the phone line for customer support. Only, you can’t talk to a person, you have to press a series of buttons, hope you don’t disconnect yourself, and then they will send a link to your smart phone for a chat.

That actually worked and the person on the other end helped get the WiFi working. Great. Now I can wireless connect my laptop, tablet, or even my phone to the Internet. Mrs. EMS Artifact was happy that her iPad was connected.

All was well with the on line world, only it wasn’t.

I tried to log on to my ISP account and couldn’t. Not because I forgot my sign on information, but because the router settings on my ISP provided router would not let me get to the ISP home page to log on.

Every time I tried, I just go a “page not found” error. Hmmm.

Then, I tried to stream some TV via Roku. Nope, the router settings would not allow ISP provided streaming app to connect to the ISP servers. Everything else worked, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu, Roku TV, etc… But not the ISP provided streaming app.

I called customer support again and this time the system connected me with a real person somewhere on Earth. I think on Earth. Apparently if you use chat some number of times the customer service computer figures you’re either a total idiot or this is a problem the automated chat system can’t fix.

I explained the problem to the very nice lady and we spent about an hour troubleshooting the issue. She finally admitted that it was above her level of expertise and that someone would text me directly to help. About half an hour later I got a text with a phone number to call.

I called and another nice person tried to help me with the problem, but to no avail.

The first insurmountable problem was that the person couldn’t comprehend my sign on problem. Every time I brought it up she said that she’d have security reach out to me to fix that. No matter how I explained that it was a problem reaching the website itself she just didn’t understand. That problem was NOT in the on line manual that they have to refer to.

We moved on to the Roku issue. I got my daily steps in by running up and down the eight stairs to the kitchen were the closest Roku box was located. After about an hour of that, the nice lady on line said that the next tier of text support thought it was an issue with the TV and I should reset that.

I asked how that would fix the other two TVs, my tablet, my wife’s iPAD, and my laptop not being able to stream.

“Oh.  I’m going to put you on hold for just a minute and transfer you to a higher tier because this is above my level.” Great.

Twenty minutes of computer generated “music” later the same nice young lady came back on the phone and said that they were refusing to pick up the call? WTF?

It was then that she decided that a tech needed to come out and look at the problem directly.

Okay.

Sunday.

Okay. Make sure that he has a spare modem because I think it’s a hardware problem.

“Most assuredly he will have a new modem.”

Okay. Make sure that he has a description of exactly what the problem is.

“Most assuredly. I am typing notes into the record so that he can see them before he comes out.”

I thanked her and hung up.

Total time between text and phone talking to three different people and an automated chat?

Six hours.

Sunday rolled around and right on time a van pulled up and a human emerged. That’s a win right there.

The tech was a nice young guy named Alex. From Romania originally.

I asked him if he had been told what the issues were?

“You can’t get on line.”

I asked if he had brought a spare modem.

“No.”

Sigh.

So, I demonstrated the Roku issue and the not being able to get to the ISP website issue.

He sat down at the computer and tried to get to the ISP address so he could log on as a tech.

Nope.

I told him that I was going to go up stairs for a minute if he didn’t need me (he didn’t).

About five minutes later I heard him yell out “WHAT THE FUCK?!”

He came up stairs and told me that he had a modem that was the next level up from mine and that he’d install that at no upcharge because my brand new modem/router was bad out of the box.

He installed that, set it up, and like magic I was able to get to the ISP website and log in.

Win #1.

I then had to reinitiate the Roku boxes and again like magic, they worked.

He took the old modem and the old new modem and said he’s turn them in so I didn’t have to return them to the ISP.

A win all around. For seven hours.

About 10:00 I decided to go to bed since the time change had screwed up my internal clock. I went up to the bedroom and tried to put on the NBC over the air channel.

Nope. No OTA channels could be watched.

Great.

A little on line research resulted in the information that the ARRIS XB7 modem/router would randomly not let people watch OTA TV over Roku. Apparently this has something to do with IP Port Addresses. It’s beyond me.

The XB7 is widely used and sure enough there are plenty of comments on the web about Roku connectivity problems. I know of two Canadian ISPs that use it

I gave up and put “Lone Star Law” and watched until I fell asleep.

This morning I had a class scheduled with a client department, so I couldn’t waste any time with customer non support. I planned on tackling that when I got home.

When I woke up, I turned on the TV and planned to watch something on one of the cable only channels. I was greeted with the activation screen for the ISP once more. I typed the numbers into the activation page on my ISP home page and like magic OTA TV came on.

I went upstairs to the spare bedroom and turned that set on. Again, like magic, OTA TV appeared.

When I got back home, I checked out the TV in the bedroom. It worked as it was supposed to.

I have no idea what transpired overnight while I was sleeping, but I’m not going to question it. I’m just going to enjoy my new Modem/Router.

Oh, and the $70.00 credit that they told me that they would get for my loss of service. Which they actually did.

Modern technology is great when it works, but when it doesn’t it’s aggravating and frustrating to try to get it fixed. My ISP, like everyone’s is cutting costs when it comes to customer service.

The result is no service most of the time.