AdventureDad

I know what you’re thinking.  I must be stoned?  High on the clean North Pole air?  Too much of my country’s Absolut Vodka?  But I’m not drunk.  I will be very soon though.  It’s Friday noon and at 3 pm the "wine bar" at work unofficially opens.  Some nice wines and cheese plus a little lying about how great we all are.  After work I’m meeting Hot Wife for a night out since we got a babysitter every Friday.  But back to my broadband provider.  Would it be totally inappropriate if I went ahead and married them?  That’s how much I love them.  They just changed broadband service in my apartment and it took ONE DAY.  Fucking outstanding!

Cable companies or broadband providers usually provide the same customer service as you received in the former Soviet Union.  Or what you might occasionally receive in Sweden.  In other words, they are usually the definition of shit service.  Usually I would rather eat broken glass than have problems with my cable/broadband company.  You know the usual story when problems occur.  You call the support center, wait forever and then ask if someone please could come and fix the service you’re paying for but is currently not receiving.  The response from the company is usually that they could send someone out almost right away.  "Can you be home this whole week between 7 AM-7PM so that our excellent representative can come to your house and fix the problem?"  Sure, I’ll just quit my job and sell my baby. Why don’t you have your representative sodomize me with a large stick as well since he’s already in my apartment.  Fuckers

Fortunately I’m having better luck over here in Sweden.  I had the most unbelievable experience this past week.  Short background.  I live in a new area where all the buildings/apartments are pre-wired with 10 mbit fiber.  We have four different providers to chose from (more if you want) and some are even soon offering 100 mbit service.  One day my download speed through p2p programs was suddenly slow as hell.  When you are used to 10 mbit and get close to zero, frustration sets in. The rest of my surfing was fast as usual and of course I did a speed test which showed excellent speeds.  I called the broadband company and asked them if there was something wrong.  They were supposed to check it out and get back to me.  I might add that my geek knowledge regarding internet is very extensive so I know what questions to ask and no one can dick me around with bullshit. 

After a few more days with snail speed in the p2p network I called back and a very nice guy told me that they had indeed started to limit the speeds of some p2p programs.  I don’t like this but if they want to lose me as a customer that is their choice. Broadband companies here in Sweden are very independent and our privacy laws are extremely strict.  In other words not like the US. It’s therefore very unusual for a company to  limit your speed.  And it was not only my connection, this applied to everyone.  So I politely told him that I was canceling my service because of this and wished him a nice day. I had already talked to a couple of other providers and had a new one in mind.  Since they  want to make canceling the service as difficult as possible, all has to be done in writing.  I was picturing a lengthy procedure full of bullshit, excuses, and mistakes.  I was expecting this whole change to take a week. At best. With possible downtime. And I was not feeling better after just having read about the problems Blurbomat had with his connection.  Granted, I had no technical problems but I was still feeling nervous about the switch. MUST. NOT. BE. WITHOUT. INTERNET. FOR.ONE. SINGLE. DAY.  I sent in the cancellation on Monday morning and also send  an application to the new company to hook up my connection asap.  All via SNAIL MAIL.

On Tuesday evening I get home from work and some of my internet settings are a bit off.  The IP ranges were just not matching.  Could it be!??  Nah, there was no way they could possibly have switched me already?  After a couple of minutes I realized they had done the impossible and switched me over in one freaking day! Without any downtime!?  The service I had before was 10 mbit up and down, which is  outstanding.  Speeds would vary a bit but it was always close to 10 mbit.  I did a quick speed test of the new provider and quickly realized the new speed was not 10 mbit.  It was a lot FASTER!  I’m getting around 10 mbit up and between 10-25 mbit down.  Happy freaking days!!!!

I’m one demanding customer when it comes to service.  There are few things I hate more than poor service and shit attitudes from a company.  But when I do get good service I go out of my way to say thanks.  I immediately send a couple of mails to the boss of the new internet supplier thanking him for their quick work and outstanding service.  Like most companies they receive few words of praise when they do good things so the boss was very happy to hear from me.  My marriage proposal didn’t come up and I guess I will have to check with Hot Wife before I make the formal request…….

All this makes it painfully obvious how addicted to internet I am.  And how spoiled we are over here with fast, cheap, and secure  internet service.  How much do I pay for my super duper connection?  $30 bucks a months with no rules or limits.  When (or if) I go to heaven I definitely want my 10 mbit service to come with me.

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