A few weeks back, I had received a call from our internet provider, asking if we wanted to switch from our private home plan to a similar cost but faster business plan. Seeing as we are self-employed, we often field these calls, which I normally just decline.... however, the promise of faster internet at a similar price from the same company? Sure, sign me on!

So, everything has been fine... until today, when the switch over happened. Of course, I had just procrastinated in setting up the new router because... well... no excuse... just did....

... and so when I was out of the house, I get a message saying that the Wifi is out (I have a mesh network behind the router, so it is able to send me a message when the internet is not reachable). I called my wife, but she hadn't noticed as her phone had switched over to the mobile network and so was still able to access the internet.

I asked her to use the tried and true method....

... sadly, the old warhorse method didn't work.

Tech Support

There is nothing more annoying than having to call Tech Support. Mostly, they are running a script and so I spend half an hour repeating the things that I've already done before my call is taken seriously... Luckily, most of these tech issues, I can fix by myself if I have the time.

In this case, it was quite painless! The woman on the other end had all my details ready to go, and she immediately said, do you have the new router installed? I sheepishly said "No", and she said to try that first....

So, I had a quick nap (brain was fried from a late concert last night), and then got straight to work on setting up the router. I thought that I would need to set up the router so that it would work as a bridge for my mesh network, and so I wasted half an hour trying to connect to the router. Somewhere along the line, these devices got smarter (or at least, less stupid!), and the router was already set into bridge mode, which was why I couldn't connect!

So, in the end, all I had to do was to plug everything in, and connect the router (in bridge) and the mesh... and we were off!

NIIIIIIICCCCCCCEEEEEEE!

Oh man! This was worth it! For a home connection, this is pretty good, especially if you keep in mind that this is the more congested time of the evening when everyone is using the network. 250 up is an improvement on the 150 up that we had, and the 40 down is a vast improvement on the 10 down that we originally had.

So, for the same price, I'm pretty chuffed! Just feeling stupid that I forgot (put off...) to connect the router in the first place... and then spent time faffing around trying to fix something that wasn't broken!