Once bitten… twice shy.
Tuesday, June 28th, 2005“We have no internet!” were the words that Chris uttered last night. I thought it was just one of those temporary outages that I occasionally experience from my Internet Service Provider. But just to satisfy my curiosity, I checked my system, checked the modem, checked the cabling, everything was fine. As I suspected, my ISP was having problems. What I didn’t realize is the gravity of the problem. This morning my internet connection was still non-functional.
My ISP, istop.com has been in dispute with Bell Canada over the tarriffs that Bell charges them. A few months ago, I suffered an 8 hour downtime because Bell had disconnected their service to my ISP. I should have switched ISPs then. But I have such a forgiving attitude, I decided to give istop a chance and continue with their service.
Tonight the inevitable happened. It seems they will be down for good. All of a sudden, their name, Istop, has a new meaning.
This morning was spent scrambling for an ISP that can put me back online ASAP. My new provider, start.ca, not only has a better name, they got me online within two hours of signing up! In comparison, every other ISP I contacted said I would need to wait 5-7 business days for service to be activated.
In hindsight, I should have learned from my past experience and switched ISPs the first time Bell cut off their services. I guess to be bitten once was not enough for me. I had to get bitten twice.
-- Posted in Geeks Paradise