Getting It Tomorrow

LoneGunman

Expert Member
Joined
Sep 23, 2003
Messages
4,552
Reaction score
3
Location
In The Shadow of Bush-lite: Obama
According to the techie who foned me on sunday (and I was too dof
to get his number) as well as Telkom adsl helpdesk, my installation is
tomorrow.

I have a netgear wireless router thingy still in its clingwrap awaiting
unwrapping, as it has been for weeks.

I'm hoping that - because my phone jack is far away from pc, and
I run an extension cord, to get phone here by pc, this isnt going to be any kind of problem (I'm a total adsl n00b)

My Plan of Action

once the techie has come and done whatever the hell he does.
I try to connect up the wireless thingy, if I cant - I yell for a geek
buddy - who may or may not be available..

phone axess, ask if I fork out now, is this amount for a calender month from pay date, or just 'to the end of the month' - bitch at the answer if its 'to the end of the month' but say okay. Bank, money, deposit at axess, fone em and say okay, I just paid you for a month or two, check your account - now gimme a login/password - something cool like l33tsupahn00b :)

come home, stare at the wireless thingy if the geek's not available, and wonder how it all works.
when I'm online:
wait for the glorious moment when hundreds of things I've had queued up on DC++ for months on Iburst, without any movement at all, start downloading.
be very happy.

remember while at bank to stop all payments to iburst from here on, and to phone them to say 'hi, Im an ex customer - pretend I foned you 30 days ago, like you pretended you let me know you were going to disconnect me'

once all's rolling, look back at that iburst section, and smile, like I do when I look back at the Sentech section..

then download a few thing. then download a few other things - then repeat process until I need to fone axess to say, heres more money, gimme another 30gigs, mmm.. and remember paying Iburst basically R400 for just 3 little gigs, a couple of times..
 
When I got my line installed by the Teklom Techie, I asked him if he could wait to see if everything was Hunky Dory, as he hadn't heard of Bowie, that confused him a bit, but anyway...

I plugged in my Planet router thingy and couldn't get the damn thing to do anything. After 10 mins of fiddling the tech guy said he has to go, but there is definately a connection.

After 20 mins of fiddling, I bunged my router into bridged mode, hooked it up to my smoothwall box via PPPoE and it worked.

So, I've never actually used my router as a router, but just as a modem.

Suits me fine - but I would plug your router into your PC before the tech guy arrives and get familiar with it.

Oh yeah, I have a 10m telephone cable plugged into my router, with 8m of it looped up and stuffed behind an old computer case by my door - makes no difference at all. Considering my telephone line is strung across dead tree trunks covered in tar across 5 peoples gardens, I guess an extra 10m or so doesn't do much harm.


I like to add that the nice thing about ADSL routers/modems is that you don't have to :-



* dangle them out of the window
* attach a pringles can to them
* stick them on a 10foot pole on top of your roof
* attach pigtails to them which in turn attach to a 30m directional aerial
* do any number of arcane rituals to the g0d of the internet in order to obtain consistent speeds.
* worry about things like MTU or MUTI
* continuously post on MyADSL a combo of "my speeds are great/my speeds suck"
 
Last edited:
Ah yes, the first time you hook your router to your computer and type in the magic IP address, usually 192.168.0.1, you'll be in awe at the brutally ugly web interface your presented with.

If your lucky enough to have a manual written in Chinglish, your all ready to rock 'n roll !

Seriously tho, your biggest worry is whether Teklom will pitch up tommorrow or not !
 
LoneGunman said:
I'm hoping that - because my phone jack is far away from pc, and I run an extension cord, to get phone here by pc, this isnt going to be any kind of problem (I'm a total adsl n00b)
Shouldn't be a problem, I have mine running through a 30m RJ11 extension, and the tech told me it go MUCH further still (can't remember the exact distance, but it was at least several times longer than that).
 
Well, it's pretty obvious really.

You'll have a box on a dead tree trunk in the corner of your property or your neighbours that will connect you to a main panel for so many properties and final a distribution box for your block of houses. The local cables for your block from one place to another are 60 to 70m long or more, strung across the poles - it's not rocket science.
 
Lonegunman

It still fails to beat me why you would pay R579 pm for 30 Gb , when with us (www.isoftnet.co.za) for R680pm ex you can get uncapped. Download heaven here we come ....
contact us, you'd be surprised.
 
hmmm
ex = excluding vat, right?

So then its actually ANOTHER R95.20 bringing the total to R775.20

No need to contact you, im not surprised.
 
Yea sorry, didnt mean to be offensive but 30gigs suit my needs fine thanks :)
 
A little Rosemary Telkomonopoly 10219 Call Centre birdie told me something interesting on Monday, I don't know if it is true or not, so take this with a big pinch of rock salt...and if you're feeling sobre some Tequila & Lemon...

I was told that if you explicitly request that "self installation" be mentioned on a HomeDSL application, then the R404 installation fee is waived...

I did not call in again to confirm this with anyone else at the call centre - mainly bcos I'd only believe it if it was mentioned in the Terms & Conditions for HomeDSL...
 
LG, if you need a CAT5 cable from the router to the PC in a bind, give me a PM/Shout. I have plenty of metres of cable, a crimping tool, and connectors.
 
LOL, if I remember correctly, LG has a 30m long piece of CAT5 between his PC & iBurst UTD, so it should be as easy as unplugging that from the iBurst UTD & mating it with the ADSL router's RJ45 port, then a simple/standard RJ11 telephone cable between Telkomonopoly wall socket & ADSL router, and if feeling exceptionally adventurous an ADSL filter to keep ordinary analogue instruments [like a fax machine] happy...

Then browse to the ADSL router's config web page - using whatever Engrish destructions are available, or perhaps just ask this forum...and Bob's your Mugger-Bee...:D

PS: Just noticed - LG has a wireless ADSL router, why are we talking about CAT5 then...:confused:
 
Last edited:
cracked the clingwrap of the wireless modem thingy, stared in horror - phoned the geek to be on standby.. now waiting for the telkom techie to bother to call or something.. might fone the adsl helpdesk, just to hear their lovely music and ask 'gee, Im supposed to be getting installation today - whose the techie assigned, and why havent I heard anything'..
(yes Im bored)
 
LoneGunman said:
cracked the clingwrap of the wireless modem thingy, stared in horror - phoned the geek to be on standby.. now waiting for the telkom techie to bother to call or something.. might fone the adsl helpdesk, just to hear their lovely music and ask 'gee, Im supposed to be getting installation today - whose the techie assigned, and why havent I heard anything'..
(yes Im bored)

Give it a 50/50 chance that :-

1 The techie won't pitch up
2 He'll pitch up late and will tell you he'll be back again first thing in the morning (11:59am)
3 The line is installed, but you spend countless hours of frustration trying to get your router to connect.

Actually, that last point - if you can't get it running, put it in bridged mode and rely on Zonealarm while you ask on the forums for geek assistance.

I had point 2 happen to me - it was a completely new line installation, the techie arrived at 3pm, saw that he would have to meddle around with ladders and trees in order to hook up my line and decided to lie that he couldn't gain access to the property that the pole was positioned in, even though he could easily have accessed it from my garden. I guess he wanted to get home early.

Point 3 happened to me as well :D
 
BTW, the netgear DG834G is supported by Mweb because they sell it in their big black box, so if you need help, phone them and pretend like you're a customer or something (used my boss's details)

Also keep in mind, some of the "installation" happens at the exchange as well, so he might be preparing everything @ the exchange and then coming to your place. If you already have a phone line installed it would not take more than 30 minutes for him to do his thing unless there is some kind of problem (like noise etc) on the line. They also carry laptops and extra modems and test it from your place before they leave.
 
@LG, when you get a chance, please could you take some cellery-phone-pics of what an Exchange looks like inside - perhaps concentrating on the patch panels & DSLAM racks...?

Perhaps you could get Stinky to give you a tour of an ADSL-enabled exchange & snap a few picks of her posing in front of the things we're really interested in - basically pander to her ego in front of the patch panels & DSLAM racks...:D
 
4.20pm on the day Im supposed to get ADSL installation, and no sign
of a techie at all.

I've phoned the adsl helpdesk twice, and they say 'its supposed to be
today, we'll escalate it'

just waiting on some other stuff, then I'll phone them one more time
today, to ask what the ****, as I've sat around all day waiting for nothing..

So tomorrow will be the day -1`of my new ADSL installation.
 
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X