Utopia, you are standing in it!

You work out how addicted you are to the Internet, and how much you are willing to pay for access to it, when you only have smart phone access to the Internet.

I lost home Internet access on the 24^th and got it back a few minutes ago. Vodafone profited considerably from my lack of home Internet.

It was a bit of a saga when I was switching over to Slingshot because Woosh is going out of business.

Slingshot bought the all-important hosting rights from my main email address. If I switched away from Slingshot, we would have to have a new email address. We would have to notify several hundred people of the same including a large number of business and billing subscriptions.

Apparently I was switching over to Slingshot on the 24^th because at 10:30 in the morning I was cut off by Woosh without any warning or notice.

The cable guy arrived at about noon the same day. I did know he was coming that day at the time in the morning when I was cut off by Woosh

I had some obscure texts and emails from Slingshot that switch-over day was the 24^th but little beyond that as to whether I was home for the cable guy on the day.

I emailed Slingshot asking what switch over day meant but no reply. In some earlier conversation weeks previous, I was told by Slingshot that it would take three or four hours to wire my house.

The cable guy arrived and wired up the internal parts of the house with great efficiency and then found out the Chorus junction box must be behind a wall. There was a green cable leading behind a wall. That green cable was the Chorus connection to our house. Our house is wired up to the Chorus and Vodafone networks. There are two cable networks in Wellington.

Our Vodafone junction box connected to the wiring in each room. I did not know that was important when choosing Slingshot.

I needed to bring in a carpenter to build an access point to that Chorus junction box behind wall. The next morning the tradesmen spent a little over four hours building that access point that should have been built when the house was built. Building standards require access points to all the places tradesmen need access underneath the house and in walls.

Maybe there was access point originally in that wall but when the previous owner used that hidden room as a drug den to grow marijuana to prisoners at a local prison where he worked as a senior corrections manager. He may have altered the house to make the drug den more secure. Not much sense to have access points to secret drug den. This is just a hypothesis as to why there was no access point despite building standards requiring it.

The cable guy spent another four hours wiring up my house, mostly having to work on about five different junction boxes in my street and beyond to get my house wired up. The Chorus wiring into my house was unusual and shared with a number of houses in the junction boxes out on the street.

Then the big moment came: we plugged in the modem. The DSL light just kept flashing rather than staying on continuously to indicate a broadband signal.

I rang up the Slingshot helpline. They said the only explanation could be a defective modem. The cable guy checked the jack point to show that there was a DSL signal coming through. Slingshot then couriered a brand-new modem. They said it would take one to four working days to arrive!

A few days later, the new modem arrived and did not work. The DSL light is still flashing rather than solid.

I rang slingshot again. Again they were sympathetic and cast the chorus guy to come out which was booked for a Saturday. They phoned me on the Friday saying they were absolutely befuddled as to why I do not have broadband suggested it might be a problem within the house

We stayed home all Saturday because the chorus technician did not show up nor explain themselves.

I telephoned Slingshot and they say they will put a note on the job to get, and Chorus will get back to me. Slingshot promised to call me back the clock the next night to check on what was happening.

Have not heard from Chorus nor Slingshot seeing Saturday.

I telephoned slingshot on Sunday night to find out what was going. The dial-up menu talked about performing an isolation test including unplugging your alarm.

This is the first I heard of my alarm in any way interfering with the possibility of being wired up by fast broadband.

I therefore have bought in at my own expense and alarm technician to service the alarm and disconnect it.

The alarm technician said it was standard practice for Chorus to blame them for problems wiring up for broadband.

The alarm technician was very knowledgeable and established that I had a dial tone but not the sound you hear when you have fast broadband.

The phone works but has an Auckland code not a Wellington code. Telling Slingshot about that puzzle was delayed by their having a major internet outage so they were not taking calls on the helpline until it is fixed.

Some may ask why did not switch to a new broadband provider. I checked into that 24^th August when I first found out there would be another few days delay.

I phoned Vodafone because they already had a fast broadband connection to the house. Their map showed that we indeed had high frequency broadband hooked up to the house but they had to send out a cable guy to wire up the house. It would take two weeks before he came. No joy there. It was more effective just to wait for the Chorus cable guy to come back after the carpentry work was finished.

The chorus guy phone this morning to say he has done something at the junction box and the DSL lights is now solid and the Internet light is flickering as it should. Back on the grid. An emotional moment.

Not having home broadband has nothing to say for it. I am not addicted to the Internet.

The Internet is valuable way of working and entertaining yourself. Why is making the best choice over and over again addictive?