If you aren’t up to date on our Internet saga, read this first.
So after all this happens with Alice, we decide we want to have Kabel Deutschland provide Internet service to us. Another expat couple that’s also here with work told us that Kabel provides free calls to America in their package, more the incentive to go with this company. Their system works on cables and not the telephone wiring. The husband calls Kabel Deutschland and starts a new contract with them to provide service, in the meantime we still have an outstanding contract with Alice. They are much faster and schedule a date 2 weeks from the phone call.
When the technician arrives, he looks around the apartment and the basement to see the connection. He says he can’t find the main cable box so therefore will need to come back. Again this exchange is all in German, broken German at best for me. I quickly call the husband and ask him to speak with the technician. They agree that he will continue to look for it in the building with my help and the husband will come home early from German class. We search around some more and even ask our 1st floor neighbor if she knows the whereabouts of the main cable box and since she has no idea we continue to search. Finally the husband comes home and I halt the search and let the men figure it out. After 1 hour of searching the entire building, they turn up with no answers. Both of them agree, the main box is in someone’s apartment but neither the technician nor the husband know which apartment. Before the technician leaves he tells us it is our responsibility to find the main cable box if we want to have internet from Kabel. This is when we both look at him, laugh and say “are you kidding me?” He didn’t think that was too funny because he repeated "if you don’t find the box then no internet."
After much begging, a Kabel technician came out to our apartment recently to help us find the main box. With his help, we've figured out that the main cable box is indeed in a basement apartment. Unfortunately for us the tenant uses the apartment for storage. And since he isn’t ever there, we scheduled a new meeting with both the tenant and Kabel Deutschland technician on the same date, hoping to turn on the internet in the next couple weeks.
Where are we? We have 2 open contracts with 2 companies and after having lived in this apartment for 8 weeks we still don’t have internet. Thankfully, Kabel technicians and customer service has been very helpful and friendly while Alice and Deutsch Telekom customer service and technicians are rude. Last week, Alice sent Deutsch Telecom technician to look at the wiring one more time and the technician called that morning to say he wasn't coming. No explained reason, he just wasn't coming. At this rate, we'll schedule any one to come over that will give us internet service, even America. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? We joke that we’ll be lucky if we have internet in the next 6 months.
On another note, I am happy to report that 2 weeks ago the husband figured out a way to use internet at home for free, sort of. We connect our iphones to the laptops for wifi. This is at no extra charge on our cell phone bills and works efficiently thus far. The only problem with this is we can’t skype with family and friends because of the low bandwidth. Hopefully once we have real internet, we’ll be back in business. Let’s hope.
So after all this happens with Alice, we decide we want to have Kabel Deutschland provide Internet service to us. Another expat couple that’s also here with work told us that Kabel provides free calls to America in their package, more the incentive to go with this company. Their system works on cables and not the telephone wiring. The husband calls Kabel Deutschland and starts a new contract with them to provide service, in the meantime we still have an outstanding contract with Alice. They are much faster and schedule a date 2 weeks from the phone call.
When the technician arrives, he looks around the apartment and the basement to see the connection. He says he can’t find the main cable box so therefore will need to come back. Again this exchange is all in German, broken German at best for me. I quickly call the husband and ask him to speak with the technician. They agree that he will continue to look for it in the building with my help and the husband will come home early from German class. We search around some more and even ask our 1st floor neighbor if she knows the whereabouts of the main cable box and since she has no idea we continue to search. Finally the husband comes home and I halt the search and let the men figure it out. After 1 hour of searching the entire building, they turn up with no answers. Both of them agree, the main box is in someone’s apartment but neither the technician nor the husband know which apartment. Before the technician leaves he tells us it is our responsibility to find the main cable box if we want to have internet from Kabel. This is when we both look at him, laugh and say “are you kidding me?” He didn’t think that was too funny because he repeated "if you don’t find the box then no internet."
After much begging, a Kabel technician came out to our apartment recently to help us find the main box. With his help, we've figured out that the main cable box is indeed in a basement apartment. Unfortunately for us the tenant uses the apartment for storage. And since he isn’t ever there, we scheduled a new meeting with both the tenant and Kabel Deutschland technician on the same date, hoping to turn on the internet in the next couple weeks.
Where are we? We have 2 open contracts with 2 companies and after having lived in this apartment for 8 weeks we still don’t have internet. Thankfully, Kabel technicians and customer service has been very helpful and friendly while Alice and Deutsch Telekom customer service and technicians are rude. Last week, Alice sent Deutsch Telecom technician to look at the wiring one more time and the technician called that morning to say he wasn't coming. No explained reason, he just wasn't coming. At this rate, we'll schedule any one to come over that will give us internet service, even America. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? We joke that we’ll be lucky if we have internet in the next 6 months.
On another note, I am happy to report that 2 weeks ago the husband figured out a way to use internet at home for free, sort of. We connect our iphones to the laptops for wifi. This is at no extra charge on our cell phone bills and works efficiently thus far. The only problem with this is we can’t skype with family and friends because of the low bandwidth. Hopefully once we have real internet, we’ll be back in business. Let’s hope.
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