Just a short two and a half months after we arrived in Donegal, we got the Internet!
This long, drawn out process was covered, in part, before. But the final last, long leg to get this technology in our house has a story, too.
Follow along with us as we tell you how we finally got this needed utility in our new(ish) home.
Our savior in this process was Stephen, who we got to meet when our landlord, Dan, was transferring the electric utilities into our name. It was at this time that we told them about the request for a UAN number. Stephen, whose fulltime job is with Eir, a broadband company, knew immediately that something was wrong.
He put our request in for broadband through Eir and said he’d try to ensure that we got the internet installed.
Stephen is really great. In fact, Stephen was so great that he got a promotion and was no longer overseeing account applications.
So, a few more weeks passed and I reached out to him and said “Hey Stephen. Any word on our installation?”
He got back to me immediately; told me he’d gotten the promotion and said he’d look into it.
He put in another request for that just didn’t happen. Again, with the bureaucracy. (What I think happened is a lower-level employee saw the request, saw that a UAN number was needed, saw that a UAN number hadn’t or couldn’t be provided and just decided they weren’t going to try any harder.)
A Solution
Stephen again reached out and said “I have one final idea. We can apply to get you the internet through a business account.”
“That’s good,” I said, “because we just started a business.”
So, the request was put in. The installation date was set. It happened to be a day when we were having a charging port installed at our house for our new plug-in hybrid car, which you’ve heard about before.
That day came. The electricians showed up to install the charging port. The gentleman who was to install the Internet showed up right when he said he would.
He worked for about an hour. (There was already a spot on the exterior of the house where Internet cables had been installed, so they’d just have to be attached to the external source.)
Finally, there was a knock on the door.
“I’m afraid the installation isn’t happening today,” he said.
It seems he couldn’t find the external source. There was a blockage preventing him from getting to the cables at the street, where he thought they would be located.
So, we had to make another appointment which included someone who would come out to dig up our front yard in order to find out what was blocking access to the needed cables that would then allow us to have the glorious Internet in our new home.
A week later, at 8 a.m., two men were in our front yard. They worked for about an hour and then, voila, we had the Internet in our home!
The moral of this story is that sometimes things work out quickly. Sometimes things take some time. But with a little patience and a healthy sense of humor, things will usually work out.
And then you’ll have a good story to share with the world.
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