The internet connection at the Guest House has been a bit flaky since I got here. It seems to have four states:

  1. Working
  2. Occasionally failures to resolve DNS queries or connect, defeated by reloading in a web browser and ignorable for most other net work. Oddly, once a connection is created it generally continues to run if it’s a dynamic keep-alive connection. Multiple connections sometimes lead to missing graphics or, worse, non-loading of CSS files for web pages.
  3. Mostly down. If I try hard I can sometimes get a web page to load by trying 20 or so “reloads”. Mail comes in when an IMAP connection establishes for a little while. Outgoing mail is very awkward and often doesn’t get out for hours or until it comes back up.
  4. Completely down.


When I arrived the connection was mostly in states 1 or 2, with odd bouts of 3 and 4. Gradually it’s deteriorated. On an increasing number of occasions, someone from the University IT support department comes out and takes the system down for anything up to four hours. They then go away. As usual when the router has been reset, it’s working. However, it then often goes to states 3 or 4 a few hours later, after the end of the working day, and typically stays that way until the following morning. We might then get most of a day with it only going to state 2 sometimes, or it might go into 3/4 for a while during the day, too.

Last week was Golden Week, which meant that Thursday, Friday and Saturday were public holidays. (The Monday of that week had also been one). The connection was mostly down the previous weekend so when it was in state 3 on Thursday afternoon I asked about it. The caretaker reported it, and I’m not sure if anyone came out to look, but basically we then had a message saying it might be down for the long weekend. It was, for all but about 10 hours split between Saturday and Sunday.

It was down again later yesterday evening and again today (after someone looked at it this afternoon) it went down about 7pm and stayed down until 11pm.

This is getting to be very annoying. My work requires internet access and I’m working outside office hours at least some of the time – I dip in and out of work as the mood and inspiration take me. It’s also interfering with my personal life, especially talking to my mother over skype, which due to the time difference is best done in my evening, which is when it tends to be down.

This is getting so bad that unless they can tell me they WILL be able to fix it within a couple of weeks, I’m going to find a new place to live. I’ve stayed at the Guest House so far mostly out of inertia. I don’t want to spend the time finding a place, moving in, and figuring out the facilities (in-place and nearby like shopping and travelling). But, the interference with both my work and social life is getting too much to bear. OK, so maybe I am a little internet addicted.