Phone Line and the Internet

So today was the day when we were going to set up our internet! We've had the box since last week and this morning we got texted the activation code, so Gale started the whole set up procedure. But she found that the phone socket beside the piano wasn't connected properly, so she unscrewed it and slotted the little doodad in place and tried again.

No luck.

So I followed the wire to see where it went, to make sure it was a real wire. Above the kitchen door I found another phone socket which had a connecter by it but not plugged in, so we plugged that in and tried again at the piano socket.

No luck there.

Continuing to follow the cable through the kitchen I found a third socket right by the window, where the phone line comes in from outside.

Well that didn't work either - no prizes for guessing that.

So Gale tried plugging the box into the socket above the door, which was an exercise and a half as there wasn't a power socket too near by - it's right across the hallway!

You guessed it - that failed too.

I couldn't see the above-the-doorway socket to unscrew it, not from the stool anyway, would have had to get a ladder, so first I went to the more manageable one beside the kitchen window.
As soon as I unscrewed it I could see a problem. There were no wires connected to the actual socket part of the casing - so when we plugged in the cable it wasn't even attached to a broken wire! But I could see wires in there, and more screws, so I got at those as well.

I think its fair to say that on the removal of the second panel the problem was pretty clear to me.


The wire which came out from the window had 7 smaller wires inside. 2 connected to the front casing, 2 broken and tangled and 3 cut off completely.

The wire which goes from this socket to the rest of the flat (the big white cable in the above photo) had another crowd of wires - at least 5 - which were also broken off and not connected to anything - no wonder neither of the other sockets worked!

So now we need to get in a man to fix the cables. We're going to bother the landlady about it. We haven't studied the lease yet but I'm pretty sure this sort of thing is her responsibility, not ours. We're quite happy to pay line rental, but the physical line - well that's like the walls or the furniture surely - we don't get to take it with us, so we don't really deal with it, we just complain about it.

So I'm still stuck to the library unfortunately, although I am doing a lot of my reading on the laptop at home.

Hopefully it won't take too long to get sorted out and then I can get on with posting about ALL the exciting things I'm doing at the moment, not just the occasional one.

Love you all
Katie

*edit at 00.42 14th October '09 *

Apparently I was wrong. The orange and white wires which are connected to the front panel of the doodad are all we need. That's right, we has internets :) and a phone. I would photo it for you but it's not that exciting-looking.

'Night then.