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Hi everyone. Thought I'd contribute one of my own stories.
Back story:
We set up a VPN router at a local company, and we shipped preconfigured matching VPN routers out to several locations across the province. All of the locations used DSL or Cable connections. The DSL provider in this part of Canada is usually Telus, and to use Telus ADSL you must register your router's MAC address with them. This being a simple enough job, I didn't think much about helping the manager of one of the locations do this. And the story begins. Conversations aren't exact as this happened several months ago.
Me: Oh, that's me.
TBM: Thick-headed, but nice manager. He was actually pretty good at following instructions.
TBM: Can you help me set up this router?
Me: Sure. Do you have Telus or Cable?
TBM: Telus.
Me: OK, you just need to swap out your current router with this one, then you need to register the new one with Telus. Sound good?
TBM: OK. This'll just take a second OK?
*makes me stay on the line while he wrestles with cables, etc.*
*several minutes later*
TBM: Hey do you have wall-mounts for these?
Me: I'm not sure, why?
TBM: The old one had wall mounts built right into it, so we had it mounted on the wall.
Me: I think we do, would you like me to order you one?
TBM: Yeah.
*goes back to wrestling cables and order him some wall mounts*
TBM: OK, I plugged everything in.
Me: OK can you get in front of a computer please?
*skip getting to the Telus configuration page*
Me: OK you should see a screen asking you for a user name and password. You just have to put in the user name and password for this Telus account.
TBM: OK.
Me: OK, so you want to go to manual registration and remove and MAC addresses currently registered to the account. Just highlight the text in the boxes, delete them, and hit submit.
TBM: OK, it says it was successful.
Me: OK now click 'Main Menu'.
TBM: OK.
Me: Now click automatic registration.
TBM: OK. It says it was successful.
*fast forward through logging into the router web administration page*
Me: OK now click 'release'.
TBM: OK, *pause* the page flashed and now the IP address says 0.0.0.0.
Me: Good. Now click 'Renew'.
TBM: OK, *pause* the page reloaded and it still says 10.0.0.X
Me: Give it a few seconds and refresh the page again.
TBM: OK. *pause* Still says 10.0.0.X.
Me: ?????. OK try rebooting the router by unplugging the power, waiting about 10 seconds, and plugging it back in again.
TBM: OK. *pause* Done.
*skip getting back into the admin page since he closed his browser*
TBM: OK. It still says 10.0.0.X.
Me: ???. You'll have to phone Telus to get this fixed up.
So he phones Telus and they blame the router. Typical. Repeat the above conversation about 4 times and he's getting angry, and understandably so. We even sent him a brand new router and it still didn't work. Finally we get Telus and him on the phone at the same time.
TG = Telus Guy
*skip a bunch of crap at the beginning*
TG: What MAC address would you like to register?
Me: *gives him the MAC address*
TG: That is actually registered to another account. Oh, it is TBM's home account.
Turns out the guy was logging into his HOME Telus account the whole time! This wouldn't be surprising, but it tells you which phone number the account is associated with when you log in. No wonder it didn't work! This happened to another person after this as well. Now I make sure to check what account they're logging into before we start. He never mentioned that his Internet at home stopped working though...
---
Later on this guy upgraded everything to Vista without consulting us, and then complained like a month AFTER his printers stopped working with Terminal Services, and acted surprised because I said I knew nothing about this.
Back story:
We set up a VPN router at a local company, and we shipped preconfigured matching VPN routers out to several locations across the province. All of the locations used DSL or Cable connections. The DSL provider in this part of Canada is usually Telus, and to use Telus ADSL you must register your router's MAC address with them. This being a simple enough job, I didn't think much about helping the manager of one of the locations do this. And the story begins. Conversations aren't exact as this happened several months ago.
Me: Oh, that's me.
TBM: Thick-headed, but nice manager. He was actually pretty good at following instructions.
TBM: Can you help me set up this router?
Me: Sure. Do you have Telus or Cable?
TBM: Telus.
Me: OK, you just need to swap out your current router with this one, then you need to register the new one with Telus. Sound good?
TBM: OK. This'll just take a second OK?
*makes me stay on the line while he wrestles with cables, etc.*
*several minutes later*
TBM: Hey do you have wall-mounts for these?
Me: I'm not sure, why?
TBM: The old one had wall mounts built right into it, so we had it mounted on the wall.
Me: I think we do, would you like me to order you one?
TBM: Yeah.
*goes back to wrestling cables and order him some wall mounts*
TBM: OK, I plugged everything in.
Me: OK can you get in front of a computer please?
*skip getting to the Telus configuration page*
Me: OK you should see a screen asking you for a user name and password. You just have to put in the user name and password for this Telus account.
TBM: OK.
Me: OK, so you want to go to manual registration and remove and MAC addresses currently registered to the account. Just highlight the text in the boxes, delete them, and hit submit.
TBM: OK, it says it was successful.
Me: OK now click 'Main Menu'.
TBM: OK.
Me: Now click automatic registration.
TBM: OK. It says it was successful.
*fast forward through logging into the router web administration page*
Me: OK now click 'release'.
TBM: OK, *pause* the page flashed and now the IP address says 0.0.0.0.
Me: Good. Now click 'Renew'.
TBM: OK, *pause* the page reloaded and it still says 10.0.0.X
Me: Give it a few seconds and refresh the page again.
TBM: OK. *pause* Still says 10.0.0.X.
Me: ?????. OK try rebooting the router by unplugging the power, waiting about 10 seconds, and plugging it back in again.
TBM: OK. *pause* Done.
*skip getting back into the admin page since he closed his browser*
TBM: OK. It still says 10.0.0.X.
Me: ???. You'll have to phone Telus to get this fixed up.
So he phones Telus and they blame the router. Typical. Repeat the above conversation about 4 times and he's getting angry, and understandably so. We even sent him a brand new router and it still didn't work. Finally we get Telus and him on the phone at the same time.
TG = Telus Guy
*skip a bunch of crap at the beginning*
TG: What MAC address would you like to register?
Me: *gives him the MAC address*
TG: That is actually registered to another account. Oh, it is TBM's home account.
Turns out the guy was logging into his HOME Telus account the whole time! This wouldn't be surprising, but it tells you which phone number the account is associated with when you log in. No wonder it didn't work! This happened to another person after this as well. Now I make sure to check what account they're logging into before we start. He never mentioned that his Internet at home stopped working though...
---
Later on this guy upgraded everything to Vista without consulting us, and then complained like a month AFTER his printers stopped working with Terminal Services, and acted surprised because I said I knew nothing about this.