Mobile Internet Down Under

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Posted by timothy on Monday September 29, 2003 @07:10PM from the fending-off-roo-attacks dept.

Anonymous Coward writes "A truck, a sat dish and a sunburnt country. When you absolutely positively need to connect to the Internet, why not carry your own broadband connection with you? One Aussie guy and his wife are doing just that -- packed up the lot and have gone on the road, so far roughly 3000km. He says 'Of course nothing is simple. The salespeople were convinced that I couldn't line up the dish -- it took me about an hour to figure out and now roughly takes about ten minutes each time I set up. They told me that the wireless gear wouldn't talk to the modem, they told me that my Debian workstation wouldn't be supported, they told me that the BOC wouldn't talk to me, they told me that I needed training, they told me that it wasn't done and it wouldn't work, they told me that I'd void my warranty, they told me so many stories..'"

13 of 192 comments (clear)

i can already see his new slogan by tokaok · 2003-09-29 19:13 · Score: 5, Funny

Can you ping me now?
Re:Australia has computers now? by Jessta · 2003-09-29 19:24 · Score: 5, Funny

Yep, We in Australia are totally awesome.
who needs a segway, when you have kangaroos.

--
...and that is all I have to say about that.
http://jessta.id.au
Blank look by theolein · 2003-09-29 19:32 · Score: 3, Funny

I can imagine the salesman giving him a blank look when he mentioned Debian. "Is that a Macintosh or something?" ;)
This can only go one way... by antic · 2003-09-29 19:44 · Score: 4, Funny

'They told me that the wireless gear wouldn't talk to the modem, they told me that my Debian workstation wouldn't be supported, they told me that the BOC wouldn't talk to me, they told me that I needed training, they told me that it wasn't done and it wouldn't work, they told me that I'd void my warranty, they told me so many stories..'

He's been told a lot of things, but did anyone tell him that divorce is imminent?

They told me that the wireless gear wouldn't talk to the modem, that my wife wouldn't talk to me...

--
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
Re:Typical salesmen by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-29 19:59 · Score: 3, Funny

To be fair, they parsed "has never been done" to "cannot be done," and they were right until he proved them wrong. Now when faced with similar problems they'll reply with, "Well there was this one really crazy guy...."
No! Longer calls!!! by eatdave13 · 2003-09-29 20:04 · Score: 4, Funny

Management likes shorter calls, poor techs like shorter calls. I like longer calls. The more I can stretch it out, the better. As it is, I'm so far above the highest metric for CPH that I get told to slow down. Their reasoning is that I'm going so fast I can't possibly be fixing their problem, even though I have almost 0 callbacks. I'm pretty sure that deep down they think I figured out a way to trick the ticketing system, especially since I get ob'd literally 1 in 3 calls I take. It's a pain in the ass, because the ob software slows my machine down to a crawl. Meanwhile, techs taking half as many calls as me get ob'd like 1 in 50 calls. Probably doesn't help that I've testified against them a few times in our union lawsuit...

Start off every call with "OK, go ahead and restart your computer." That's a great one, because if they're not talkative it's like a mini break. Reinstall TCP/IP every excuse you get, that's 2 reboots unless they only have one phone line. Oh, and when the call starts, just let 'em talk. They'll usually go for about two minutes, and only the last few sentences usually matter, so you can tune 'em out and just kind of skim what they're saying. And if they say that you're being rude, just tell them, "I'm not being rude, ma'am." They always believe it. I don't know why, but they do.

--
"Verbing weirds language." -- Calvin
I bought a ....... by losttoy · 2003-09-29 20:10 · Score: 2, Funny

BONGO!!

The salesguy told me that it had no TCP/IP stack and they do not support TCP/IP over Bongo ;-)

Heh, but what do salespeople know?? Now I can bing from anywhere in the world!! :)
Re:Well, not the only way... by eatdave13 · 2003-09-29 20:12 · Score: 2, Funny

Case in point... me :) I'm a qualified tech on the front line, and I AM in the loony bin. WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! !! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAW WWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH!!!! Buahahaha ahahhahahahah ahahahahhTBBBBBBPHHHHHHHH!

2 YEARS OF FRONT LINE TECH SUPPORT, BIATCHES!!! WAHOOOO!!!

I can write C++, recomplie a kernel, make up firewall rules and routing tables in my sleep, and I'm talking to people that don't know you have to push the little tab down to pull the phone cord out WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

*stares into space and drools*

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! I can't get a decent job without a college degreeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEE!!! WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

*bounces off into the woods*

--
"Verbing weirds language." -- Calvin
Re:Really, by Galvatron · 2003-09-29 20:27 · Score: 2, Funny

Goddamn, isn't each 1 pound coin equivalent to about a buck fifty? How expensive IS laundry in the UK?
As for this specific vending machine issue, if they were worried about people taking all their change, why not just have it return the same coins that were put in? That's what most vending machines here in the States seem to do. And what kind of a laundromat doesn't have change machines anyway?

--
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Re:Australia has computers now? by ayjay29 · 2003-09-29 20:55 · Score: 5, Funny

I have an Aussie mate who was on a plane home last year, and sat next to a middle-aged American lady. She was talking about TV, and asked if they have cable in Australia. He said his family had just got their first TV, but that the guy next door was going to get one that showed things in colour instead of black and white.
He then asked the lady what a video was, and she went into a long detailed explanation of how you could set it to record a program when you were out, then come back and watch it later. Much to the amusement of the twenty or so Aussies who were in hearing range of her explanation.

--
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Wow! by teledyne · 2003-09-29 21:04 · Score: 1, Funny

so far roughly 3000km.

Damn! That must be a huge pringles can!
Re:10 minutes to line up the dish? by azzy · 2003-09-29 21:37 · Score: 2, Funny

'Back braking' is two words. But congratulations on spelling one of them correctly. That's above average for /.
Re:Just play along by fven · 2003-09-29 21:44 · Score: 4, Funny

I had some firmware driver issues with hardware I'd purchased. I only twigged to what was going on when the retail people let me set up my hardware next to their display model - theirs worked, mine didn't - theirs was twelve months older than mine.
Got some mates together, worked out exactly which drivers did and didn't work, then rang the given number and asked for a firmware upgrade (or preferably downgrade).
First we went through what kind of carpet I had, then she thought that "about two feet" off the ground was a bit high (measure the height of your desk). I got a little insistent that it was a software problem on their side - she asked if I ment games. I explained that there was software sort of pre-programmed into the chip that told it what it was and how it should detect it's environment and react accordingly (well it does...). She put me on hold for a while, then came back and told me that none of the other girls had ever heard of what I was on about and so she couldn't help me.
Ugh..I'm still stuck with defective hardware....