What Not To Do With DSL Broadband - True Story

You may have seen elsewhere on this website that I have had three different DSL broadband providers in the last three years. Well my story with one of these providers has an embarrassing end.

Picture the scene, It's early December, The house has just been decorated and the Christmas tree's up. I have spent the last two days putting up my outside Christmas display with my collection of flashing Santa's, reindeer and anything else to do with Christmas. I plug them into my auto-timer so they will all come on at night even if I'm not there. I step back, admire my work and head indoors. I make a mug of hot chocolate to get into the spirit and sit back to check my emails. This is when the mood turns. I can't connect. It tells me there's no dial tone.

I didn't remain so happy for long. I checked all my connections and everything seemed to be working ok. So I telephoned my DSL broadband company to ask if there were any problems they were aware of. They tested my line and said it was fine. Oh well, time to try something else. I re-booted my PC and tried again. I connected for about 20 seconds and then had the same problem. I was tired after being outside all day and my good mood began to vanish. I un-installed my modem software and re-installed it thinking that this might do the trick. Still no joy. I checked everything I could think of before phoning my DSL broadband company again. They still said there was no problem and even though I insisted everything was fine my end they just kept passing me from one department to another.

The next morning I tried again and a big smile spread across my face as I got the message 'connected'. I didn't know what happened the night before but I didn't care either, (in case you hadn't noticed my internet connection is important to me). It was all working and went to work a happy man. When I came home, I turned my PC back on and couldn't believe it when the exact same thing happened again, no connection! I got straight back on the phone to my DSL broadband provider and once again got absolutely nowhere. I spoke to numerous people in India who had no idea how to help me.

This kept happening for the next 4 weeks. I narrowed down my problem times to around 4.30PM until the next morning. Eventually after about 2 hours a day on the phone for the next 3-4 weeks I convinced my DSL broadband company to send an engineer to my house. He checked my PC connections and confirmed they were fine. He checked the outside line and that to seemed OK. He asked what time the problems usually start and so I said around 4.30pm. He then asked what time my Christmas lights came on...

It was then that I slowly said 4.30pm. I couldn't believe it. How on earth could my Christmas lights affect my Internet connection? The engineer explained that all electrical devices transmit a small signal and it seemed one set of my lights were interfering with my line. I went bright red but felt a bit better when he let me know that he had never seen this happen before.

I unplugged this set and hey presto, Internet! I was so embarrassed but so relieved. So if you have problems connecting, try and think outside the box. You never know what it could be.