It’s been over five months of quiet patience, but now that I can just about taste the gigabit-per-second fibre speeds, every extra day is pure agony.

Yes, it is irrational and stupid and I don’t care. I have turned from a patient, mature enabler of the FTTH network in my complex to a nagging five year old, only far less adorable.

For two months I helped my complex body corporate arrange marketing days for fibre providers and the ISP spearheading our roll-out.

The more pre-orders they received, the sooner fibre would roll out, we heard. Mine was the first one in – I’ll take a gigabit, please. (Only for the first month, then I’ll downgrade to a more reasonable 100Mbps).

In two months, they had half the complex expressing interest or signing pre-orders, and then the provider said the magic words.

For another three months, I patiently waited while kilometres of ducting and fibre were laid throughout my complex.

Finally, the call came. The installers scheduled a date and time to put in the last few metres of fibre from the nearest manhole to my unit.

By lunchtime the following day, my fibre was installed.

That night I sat staring at the ONT (Optical Network Terminal), which is basically a fancy router. Only its power LED was on, taunting me, refusing to allow the “broadband” light to come on.

I would not let it beat me. Patiently I waited until Thursday. The installer then let me know there was a minor issue that should be resolved by Friday.

On Friday evening I came home late and the broadband light was still dead. Still, I stood strong.

Equipment failure

I finally lost it on the morning of the 159th day, a Saturday.

Emails went flying. They were polite but insistent, and a very patient soul from my ISP made enquiries and found out equipment failure was causing the problem.

The ONTs the installers had put in the previous week were replaced, and when I arrived home from work all the important lights were on.

I almost put a Shoryuken through my ceiling panel – until I realised I don’t yet have login details for an ISP account that runs on the network.

Apparently, all that needs to happen now is for my ISP’s scheduling department to make an appointment to come and install my router.

Hours have gone by without any word and I’m about to chew through my desk.

In moments of lucidity I wonder how a few more days of waiting after nearly six months can be such a problem, and yet it is. It’s torture. It’s cruel and unusual.

Help.

This is an opinion piece.

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