On Thursday of last week SaskTel told me that they wanted to replace my old modem with one of their new hi-speed wireless router internet access units.

When they asked me if I wanted to have someone come and install it, or save the $25.00 and do a “self-install” I figured that I know enough about computers that it should be an easy task.

They assured me that all I had to do was unplug the old one, and plug the new one in. I’m not stupid. Nothing is that easy.

My old modem has been around for about eight years or so. It worked just fine, and I really didn’t see the need to upgrade. As well, I had a working wireless network running, the firewall all set up, and all of the computers connected properly and sharing files and printers the way they were supposed to.

But, it was new and shiny, with lots of blinking lights, and I couldn’t resist.

I opened the box, and looked at all of the instruction manuals (actually, I didn’t open them up, just noted that they were included in the box). There were a whole bunch of other gadgets and connectors and I put them in a separate pile. I didn’t know what they were, or why they would be needed. The manuals probably have information on that.

Now here’s the thing. When my internet connection was first installed by SaskTel, they had to install a separate phone jack for the internet connection, and some sort of controller gizmo in the basement. I knew this was going to give me grief. The new router didn’t need this stuff. All I had to do was plug it into the telephone jack – and it was supposed to work.

Wrong.

The telephone jacks had been wired specifically for phone only, or internet only. The new thing-a-ma-jiggy wanted both. So when I plugged the machine in, it told me that there was not an existing phone connection, or not an existing broadband connection, depending on which jack I used.

So, I crawled under the desk, and re-wired the jacks so that they were both internet and telephone ready. I plugged the new thing-a-ma-jiggy in, and it said that there was too much noise on the line. It suggested I install a filter on each phone line in the house.

Uh-huh.

Back to the pile of extra stuff. Some of them were labeled “filter” so it was obvious what I needed to do. I decided I didn’t really need to filter all of the phone lines, just the one I was hooking the modem to.

The thing-a-ma-jiggy strongly disagreed with that, and told me to connect the filters to all of the phones before it would even consider trying to connect to the internet. When I was done that, I could click “Try Again” to establish a connection.

It’s amazing how well a person can take orders from a machine. I obediently connected all of the filters (except one, ’cause no machine is gonna tell me what to do) and clicked “Try Again”

A registration page popped up on the computer, and I filled in all of the blanks and hit “Okay” Not Okay. I was not a registered user. I was to call the help desk for assistance.

But the internet was working, so I decided I could do that anytime, if ever, and continued on. I needed to change the configuration of the computers on my network to recognize the new router and set about doing that.

In about a half hour, I had everything done, and all was well.

I had a cup of coffee, and decided it was time to check my email.

“Cannot establish a connection with your email service. Please make sure all cables are connected properly and you are not behind a firewall. Contact your system administrator for assistance”

None of the computers were connecting now. I checked the thing-a-ma-jiggy and it told me I was not a registered user, and to call the help desk again. Sure that it was something I could fix, I re-booted the computers, re-booted the router, and ran through the set up process again.

Everything stalled at the registration, where I was once more informed I was not a registered user and to call the help desk. I said “Okay” and clicked “next” like I did before, assuming all would be well.

This time I was told in no uncertain terms, that I could not set up the router until I registered, and that before I could continue, I needed to call the help desk for assistance.

I did that. The first thing they said was, “Why did you get a new modem. Did your other one quit working?”

“No, it was suggested by your people that I should upgrade”

“Hmm, we’ve never had too many problems with that old model. I wonder why they told you that. Here’s the problem though. You are not a registered user”

Biting my tongue, I replied, “Can I become a registered user”

“Yes. But we will have to reset everything, including your passwords. Then you will have to run through the set up procedures again on all of your computers”

“Let’s do it then”

“If you old modem and router is working, you can just return the new one if you want”

“I would, but I have already changed everything for the new one.”

“Did you connect filters to all of your phone lines? You will have trouble connecting if you didn’t do that”

“Yes,” I lied, knowing I deliberately left one line unfiltered.

“Okay, then. This will only take a moment. Uh-oh…”

Uh-oh. UH-OH!!!. That’s never good. “Uh-oh?” I asked.

“I’m going to put you on hold. Seems there is a minor technical difficulty”

A cigarette later, the help guy returned. “There we are. You should be able to continue with your installation now. You will have to unplug the modem, restart all of your computers, and go through the complete setup process”

Everything was working fine about an hour later.

Now, there’s a whole bunch of “tweaking” things to do to get it working like the old system, but I’ll save that for a rainy day.