Not long after investing in a shiny new monitor to sit beside my laptop, and in the midst of enjoying the largess of surfing in one screen and emailing in the other, I opened another Firefox tab to be greeted by the spine-tingling message: "No network connection".
I waited and waited and then went through the standard modem reset - router unplug/ router plug-in - to no avail.
Thinking it was a blip I went to bed annoyed but sure that my broadband would be up by morning.
Alas, it was not. So I called my internet service provider (ISP), which said there could be problems, although not at my end, nor at its end.
The problem lay somewhere in the ether and a Telecom technician would be notified of the problem, I was told.
This is the grim reality of broadband in New Zealand. When a problem occurs, a blame-game inevitably begins. All faults not directly caused by the ISP or the user need to be referred to the owner and operator of the lines, either TelstraClear or Telecom.
This to-and-fro between the operator, the ISP and the consumer is frustrating, not to mention potentially damaging to business.
In these situations a calm demeanour is required as there is no legal or contractual obligation to provide broadband 24/7. Yes, it's true.
In fact, the broadband terms and conditions of TelstraClear, Telecom, Orcon, and Slingshot all state explicitly that broadband connectivity is not guaranteed.
More important than connectivity is how your ISP deals with it. Not causing the fault and doing everything in their power to fix it are different things.
Unable to fix the fault immediately, my ISP helpfully reminded me that I could use dial up until my broadband was back again.
Perhaps I'm an ungrateful person, but this offer was cold comfort.
After five days and numerous reconnection attempts by my ISP, I still wasn't getting broadband. I went through more modem and line resets than I care to count, spent more minutes waiting for an operator than considered humane.
Three more days of waiting and still nothing. Worse than this, I was told in the foggiest of terms what the problem was.
Another two days of waiting followed and I used up my cellphone's 3G data cap to conduct essential business. Then, on a magical Friday afternoon - after yet another marathon conversation with a call centre - it was up. Broadband had risen!
While it may sound like an obvious thing to do, every broadband user, if they haven't done so already, should prepare a broadband shutdown survival plan. We're not making this up.
If you have access to dialup, make sure you have the correct equipment, settings and password handy.
Having mobile internet can lessen the severity of the downtime. Email can be sent, statuses can be updated. Even though 3G is often horrifically slow, it's better than nothing.
Find out the locations of Wi-Fi hotspots near your house or office (libraries are a good place to start) or friends that will let you bum Wi-Fi off them.
Lastly, if losing broadband is a life or death situation you may like to consider setting up a back-up account with another ISP. This however, is a complex, costly and sometimes unreliable option.
Ultimately though, broadband users should take heart, New Zealand's broadband providers are on the whole reliable.
The 2009 first quarter report from the Commerce Commission on the quality of broadband shows that broadband reliability averaged around 99 per cent a month, with a downtime of about 14 minutes a month for most ISPs.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/2762376/Surviving-broadband-hell
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