Internet Connection at Last!

I arrived at my rental home in Florida last Thursday. The owners had had cable TV installed before I arrived. They had been renting long term (1 year) but have switched to short term (weekly or monthly). I have rented for 5 weeks. At my request they ordered Internet, but the soonest it could be installed was yesterday. I have taken my laptop to Starbucks, which is OK for some things.

The installer was to arrive between 11am and 2pm. I told the owner I would be here for him. He called about 10am to ask if he could come sooner. By 10:30am the modem was installed and working. Next I hooked up the wireless router I brought from home, so that I could use the Internet for my laptop and Tivo. What I thought would be a simple task was anything but! I think the problem was that I have DSL at home and cable Internet here.

A visit to the router manufacturer's (Linksys) web site was of little help. I tried a "technical chat" and was told the router was out of warranty and they had little technical support but she could send me an email with some help. Thankfully I asked her what I should do if the email did not help. She gave me the phone number of Technical Service. This number is NOT on the web site.

The email was nothing more than a link to what I had already read on the web site. So I called Tech Serve. Of course I was faced with an automatic response system but told I could dial zero at any time for live help. I decided to try the automated system first. I put my cell on speakerphone. I was very pleased with this service. They had step-by-step instructions. At any time you could repeat the instruction, go back to the previous step or on to the next step. It took about 30-40 minutes of shutting every think down and booting back up (several times) but it worked!

This was an unusual Tech service experience!