As business you rely on a reliable internet connection. Especially if you run a cloud based online Point of Sale system. Last Saturday the connection was down. Luckily not at the stores, it was the home internet. Still bad enough if you run everything in a cloud. Fast reliable internet in Australia would be a topic on its own. Of course you could have a old school program not relying on the internet, but as start-up you try to take advantage of the technology out there and try to save. Come on, we live in the 21st century.
Ok, the connection was down, I was working at one of our stores and the easiest way is to call the call line. After going the menu option I was connected to a real person, just after two minutes. I had a simple question: Is the NBN [National Broadband Network] down in our area; A simple Yes or No question. It may be the router, who knows. Of course you have to give them all the details for that question again, First Name, Surname, Date of Birth, residential address. Hello, I have simple questions. I do not want to get a loan from you. Anyway, after this was done, the person noticed it was the wrong account. We have three for each location, that how the Telco roll. It cannot be all on one account. Ok, try the next account. Again, I had to answer the same questions. Did I hang up or change gender during the 30 seconds we swapped the account? Still, no answer to the question. The person promised me to get the answer but needed me to put me on hold. Sure, I said. Off the hold, still no answer, same thing, needs to put me on hold. Coming off the hold, 10 minutes already on the call, another person on the line. And the first question, what is my name? Seriously, you are asking me again for my name? The person talking to me for almost 10 minutes did not have the courtesy to inform you about that? At this stage I was reluctant to give any information and pointed out that I just wanted to know if there is an outage. I did not ask to solve the world poverty, just if you have an outage. Ok, I was put on hold again. We are now 15 minutes into the call. After coming of hold again I was informed, that there is an outage for the NBN in Queensland area. Are you kidding me, do you have any idea how big Queensland is? Can you not narrow it down from the 1.852.642 km² a little? No, they couldn’t. Funnily enough both connections at the stores, both in Queensland, were working. And the person had to mention, that I could check the website for myself for outages. Well need internet for that, do I. I’m just glad not do use the same Telco for may phone and hang up!
Cover Photo by Christian Joudrey on Unsplash
ROCK'N AUSTRALIA 