For a week, 93 people had no network in addition to the Vodafone center. Me neither. Fault is a “local backwash,” says the company. A shaky socket has apparently caused digital forced detox.
I know: There are people who pay a lot of money so that they are really offline. Digital detox is the name of this bang concept. It is nothing for me. I make up when I want to “switch off notifications” is a command that I can use well.
Conversely, I want to be online if I want. Day and night. For this and that. Forced detox is not for me. Network connection is like water and electricity in the house. And if someone turns it on, I would like to know beforehand. The Stadtwerke Bappen also a piece of paper on the door. My Vodafone connection in the beautiful Düsseldorf district of Flingern, just two and a half kilometers as the crow flies from the company headquarters, was still dead. For a week.
Daughter considered to move to a friend
And a lot goes off in such a week. The smallest cannot download Peppa Wutz. Beautifiable, but for parents who sometimes need five minutes for something other than the daughter.
The bigger one thinks of moving to a friend. Home Office for my wife and me that we have jobs that don't take place between “nine to five”? Total failure after the data volume has evaporated in real time via Hotspot. Thank you Ki that you are so hungry for data, I sigh.
Call at Vodafone leads to the chatbot
The call to Vodafone ends up after a queue of chatbot, which says on Mondays that you will take care of and put on within the week. Attempts on Wednesday, on Friday, on the weekend – none. No network. No nothing.
The colleagues are already smiling. He recommends Elon Musks Starlink, said one. I check: Delivery within a week, cost 50 euros a month, breathtaking down and upload speed. The starter kid costs 199 euros. Before I let Elon do it and we grab the stars, the native Vodafone should get another chance.
“Unfortunately we cannot be reached personally”
Next Monday the next live call, this time at the press office, also because this sentence that makes so helpless: “Unfortunately we cannot be reached personally.” I send an email afterwards with the description of the problem: “I wonder”, at 10.16 a.m., “how it can be that an internet connection that is now part of basic supply such as electricity and water can simply dissolve in nothing without anyone being responsible.”
Schwups – the network is back. There has been a local restriction in a very small part of the fiber optic cable network in Düsseldorf-Flingern, a real person from Vodafone writes at 2:04 p.m. 93 customers are impaired.
A local return interface was active. Vodafone couldn't do anything for this, but such a disturbant consists of a broken power cable, a shaky socket or an ancient electric device.
Limited to the source of the interference usually
Hands away from the retro toaster, I think. “Despite intensive measurements, the context of the interference source is usually very time -consuming,” writes the press office. There is a YouTube film that shows how the Vodafone employee rings in the red t-shirt on the front door in the red T-shirt and therefore asks to measure.
So I learned something. More precisely two things: Chatbots don't help like real people. And: I will have to pay attention to local return interfaces on my way this evening and otherwise in life.
