5 Days with no comms

[Outdated]

Last Wednesday afternoon my comms went down. Internet and phone dropped out at the same time. That meant if I wanted to phone and get someone to sort it out then I'd have to go out to a different area so I could connect through a different mobile tower. Not an idea I relished, I don't go out much and I hate making phone calls.

So I just let it ride that night hoping it would all come back on by itself. It didn't. I still couldn't make any phone calls all day Thursday and Friday and I still didn't feel like going out so I treated it like a personal psychological experiment - how would no comms affect me after a few days?

I discovered I don't miss YouTube or the news. I did miss this forum, and my emails, and being able to check weather forecasts.

This morning I tried to phone out again and this time my phone was playing up and wouldn't let me enter my pin to open it up. Out of curiosity I put my sim card in my old phone and it worked perfectly, no problems.

It seems a strange coincidence that my phone would die at the same time that my internet service also died but I guess it's possible. No need to phone my phone service provider to mention an outage now because there isn't one, but I'll wonder about that for a long time I think. In the meantime I'm glad to be back online again.

 

[Judge]

We've had three straight days around 5pm when the Internet went down for about three hours.

Wondering now if it will happen again in the next half hour. Presently it's 105 degrees F.

My phone system is directly tied to the Internet, so when it happens I lose both. (Same Provider)

 

[Outdated]

My phone system is directly tied to the Internet, so when it happens I lose both.

Mine are completely unrelated service providers, except that both of them piggy back on the one parent provider Optus. My main internet access is optic fibre/copper - that means there's optic fibre to the street and then copper wire to the old landline plughole in my kitchen wall.

That means that my internet access is being managed through a phone exchange junction, which these days is just a server instead of the old fashioned junction boxes. On several occasions now I've lost internet and phone at the same time but never for more than an hour or so.

It seems natural to me to lay blame at the feet of whoever is managing that exchange server - Optus.

 

[jsilver256]

I did wonder where you were. Thank you for the update.

 

[Judge]

5:09pm and the Internet hasn't gone down yet. Must be the temperature dropping to 104 degrees.

 

[Outdated]

That's a huge timezone jump - here it's 9:40 Monday morning. I hope you've at least got a dry heat where you are, humidity when it's hot kills everything electronic.

 

[Judge]

That's a huge timezone jump - here it's 9:40 Monday morning. I hope you've at least got a dry heat where you are, humidity when it's hot kills everything electronic.

Unbelievably dry today- 10% humidity. Very dangerous brush fire exposure though. Something your country knows all too well.

 

[Outdated]

Unbelievably dry today- 10% humidity. Very dangerous brush fire exposure though. Something your country knows all too well.

Here we're having an incredibly cold and wet winter but I think that's a sign that our weather patterns might start returning back to normal. We haven't had a summer for 4 years running, just an insipid sort of spring that turns straight back to autumn again. I'm hoping a cold winter means we'll get a hot summer for a change.

 

[WhitewaterWoman]

Good to have you back.

Yesterday and for several days before it was in the 90sF and 98% humidity. No outages yet.

Today humidity went down to 62%, much more liveable.

 

[Neia]

Last Wednesday afternoon my comms went down. Internet and phone dropped out at the same time. That meant if I wanted to phone and get someone to sort it out then I'd have to go out to a different area so I could connect through a different mobile tower. Not an idea I relished, I don't go out much and I hate making phone calls.

So I just let it ride that night hoping it would all come back on by itself. It didn't. I still couldn't make any phone calls all day Thursday and Friday and I still didn't feel like going out so I treated it like a personal psychological experiment - how would no comms affect me after a few days?

I discovered I don't miss YouTube or the news. I did miss this forum, and my emails, and being able to check weather forecasts.

This morning I tried to phone out again and this time my phone was playing up and wouldn't let me enter my pin to open it up. Out of curiosity I put my sim card in my old phone and it worked perfectly, no problems.

It seems a strange coincidence that my phone would die at the same time that my internet service also died but I guess it's possible. No need to phone my phone service provider to mention an outage now because there isn't one, but I'll wonder about that for a long time I think. In the meantime I'm glad to be back online again.

I was wondering if you were OK.
Glad to know it was your phone and Internet and not that you were unwell.

 

[Outdated]

Thanks for your concern, and WhitewaterWoman as well. I'm tougher to kill than a brown dog though.

I drink and smoke and smoke a lot of dope, eat red meat and spend most of my life playing video games and not exercising. And I intend to live to 103 just out of spite.

 

[Neia]

Mine are completely unrelated service providers, except that both of them piggy back on the one parent provider Optus. My main internet access is optic fibre/copper - that means there's optic fibre to the street and then copper wire to the old landline plughole in my kitchen wall.

That means that my internet access is being managed through a phone exchange junction, which these days is just a server instead of the old fashioned junction boxes. On several occasions now I've lost internet and phone at the same time but never for more than an hour or so.

It seems natural to me to lay blame at the feet of whoever is managing that exchange server - Optus.

My service is also fibre, with most of the connections below ground.

But all the connections in my neighbourhood come from the main boxes on our main street, up to old style phone posts, and then the cables stretch from post to post and into each house.

Now... I live in one of the windiest regions in the country. There's a Burrough close to mine that is actually called Wind's Father. When we have windstorms our connections are spotty.

I've complained about this and they sent a technician, on a day when there was no wind, who promptly declared all was well

 

[Outdated]

I got used to very spasmotic connections living out in the bush. I had a satellite dish which was expensive and slow but it was mostly reliable, a few other people in the region kept trying to use wifi and that was hopeless. So I ended up with a bit of experience in signal booster setups as well. It was a poor community in a remote area so I was a free computer tech for everyone.

 

[Neia]

Here we're having an incredibly cold and wet winter but I think that's a sign that our weather patterns might start returning back to normal. We haven't had a summer for 4 years running, just an insipid sort of spring that turns straight back to autumn again. I'm hoping a cold winter means we'll get a hot summer for a change.

Our summer is being a bit temperamental as well.

We have days of heat, with temperatures above 28⁰C (82⁰F), which cause terrible windy nights.
But tge day after, it cools down, then it rains, then warms up again

Not that I mind.
I hate the heat, so the cooler days are awesome for me.

Just wish it would be October already, and the cooler weather would be here for another 6 months.

 

[Outdated]

Just wish it would be October already, and the cooler weather would be here for another 6 months.

I just hate having to wear so many clothes all the time and look forward to be able to sit around in just a pair of shorts. I also really hate wearing shoes so I don't go out much in winter when the ground is cold. When I lived out bush I didn't even own a pair of shoes for 10 years, when I wanted to come down south I had to buy a pair of shoes on my way to the airport, they won't let you on a plane without shoes.

 

[Neia]

Yes... you can't ride a bus wearing only swimwear.

A thing that's said in my family is: "You can always wear an extra layer in winter, but can't walk around in public naked in summer."

It seems like your feelings towards winter mirror mine for summer

 

[Outdated]

Walking around barefoot is quite common in Australia in all the areas that have warmer weather, it just makes more sense. It's more comfortable. Yet in the colder regions it's frowned on a bit, people don't like it. Where they have to wear shoes most of the time because of the cold it has become a subconscious fashion.

 

[Neia]

Walking around barefoot is quite common in Australia in all the areas that have warmer weather, it just makes more sense. It's more comfortable. Yet in the colder regions it's frowned on a bit, people don't like it. Where they have to wear shoes most of the time because of the cold it has become a subconscious fashion.

When I was a kid, and until about 10 years ago, I'd always walk barefoot around the house, and sometimes even in my yard, but not out on the streets. I can't stand feeling my feet sticky
I'd have to keep washing them every 5 minutes. Not to mention the danger of getting a piece of glass slice your foot or getting embedded into it

Not a feasible option here, we're most people still treat public places like their private garbage bins.

 

[Outdated]

Not a feasible option here, we're most people still treat public places like their private garbage bins.

Here our cities are very clean and if someone sees you dropping rubbish on the ground there's a fair chance that they'll walk over and make you pick it up again. Our national parks no longer have rubbish bins either, you're expected to take all your rubbish back home with you when you leave.

I love the feel of the different textures under my feet when I'm walking around, and when you do it all the time your feet get pretty tough, unless they were big chunks broken glass never bothered me much.

 

[Neia]

Here our cities are very clean and if someone sees you dropping rubbish on the ground there's a fair chance that they'll walk over and make you pick it up again. Our national parks no longer have rubbish bins either, you're expected to take all your rubbish back home with you when you leave.

I love the feel of the different textures under my feet when I'm walking around, and when you do it all the time your feet get pretty tough, unless they were big chunks broken glass never bothered me much.

Wish it was like that here.

But I can't stand the feel of bits of glass underfoot, when wearing shoes, or the feel of sandy bits on a tiled floor just the thought of that makes me grimace and shiver in disgust