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Proper rant tonight... I was getting an upgrade to my home entertainment today. It needed an engineer visit. What a useless clown he turned out to be.

2 hrs after arriving, he left and things weren't working remotely right at all. But it was Saturday and he was off the clock so I had to suck it up. No option to back out either - it was all activated and I had to accept it.

He spent most of the time arguing with me about my home network was set up and how it was wrong and how it was important for the overall system to work. Being a geek and having done research, I couldn't understand this - that wasn't how it was meant to be, I knew. I accept my home wiring is a bit odd, but I've had a working system for years because it's all necessary.

After all the faffing about and purchase of some new powerline units (which I accept I needed anyway but where unrelated to this set up), looking more into it myself, it is now up and running correctly.

I am thoroughly pissed at the ineptitude of the engineer. He clearly doesn't understand how the system works. He doesn't understand how powerline works and how it's a life saver for people with awkwardly shaped houses or thick walls where Wi-Fi is useless. If he had, we would have had far fewer issues and I wouldn't have had the stress of thinking I'd killed our home entertainment and internet and there was nothing I could do about it.

I don't blame the provider (besides them clearly not providing adequate training). But this was arrogant uselessness. At least I had the knowledge to understand how it was meant to work and get it sorted myself.

Maybe it could be a useful sideline job if I get fed up with developing.

Comments
  • 2
    I'm glad it turned out alright! Some people think they know what they are doing when it's clear they do not.

    Thanks for sharing!
  • 2
    No offense, but why Powerline and not Cat 7? I understand that Powerline is easier, but it creates radio interference (power-line noise) which are a real pain.
  • 0
    Powerline units are a cool concept on paper. Not so much in real life. I'd rather use wifi. And have the extra outlet for devices.
    They are a security risk
    Unstable and tend to fail. However most lazy installers love them. Plus to really really understand them you have to be a electrician plus some. So it's no surprise he doesn't understand them.
    However I feel your pain.
  • 0
    @gnaaah ya exactly.
  • 0
    @gnaaah Sadly I don't have the time, money nor inclination to dismantle half my house and garage to hard wire. I fully accept that would be the best solution, but simply not feasible.
  • 0
    @skprog I have no choice really. The way my house is, my phone line goes to our garage (which is a physically separate building) and we need to get it back into the house. Powerline is my only option without a sizeable construction job to install wires. Wi-Fi just degrades too much over the distance and with having to go outside.
  • 0
    @CrankyOldDev so they're physically separate but are close enough and on the same power line just enough for it to reach. That's lucky that you don't have some transformer in between. Make sure no one plugs in another outside your garage and starts hacking your local network.
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