internet

I am connected to the internet and the new house has wifi

Receiving dish being installed, perfectly illustrating the Czech approach to health & safety 🙂 © Ricky Yates

One concern I had from the outset of deciding to purchase my new home in Stará Oleška, was whether I would be able to obtain easy internet access. Ever since having an email address and joining the world-wide web, I have always done so via a broadband connection as part of having a landline phone – through British Telecom in North Oxfordshire and via O2 in Prague.

Therefore, back in mid-April, I enquired of Real Estate Agent Martin Tonder, whether the elderly owners of the house, had a land line phone line through which internet access could be obtained. In reply he wrote, ‘Sorry there is no land line, but there should be very reliable wireless service from JAW.cz’.

The website of JAW.cz is unfortunately only in Czech. But helped by Google translate, I got a good understanding of the service that they offer. I therefore sent off an email to their generic email address info@jaw.cz, with a brief Czech introduction, but with the rest in English, asking about whether they could provide an internet service to my new home and at what cost. Being a hi-tech company, I didn’t think it unreasonable to assume that there would be someone competent in English, who could reply.

I sent similar emails twice, but was greeted by total silence. Therefore it was a few days after I had moved into the new house and was in Martin Tonder’s office in Decín, resolving a couple of other issues, that I mentioned to him, this lack of response from his recommended company. He was most surprised at this and promptly rang JAW.cz. His call resulted in the promise that a technician would call to assess the situation on Monday 22^nd May at 14.30.

Communication mast on a hill four kilometres away © Ricky Yates

The technician duly arrived at the appointed time. Whilst he didn’t have a word of English, he pointed out the communication mast on a hill four kilometres away from which a signal could be obtained, and told me that Bar-restaurace U Soni, three doors down the road, obtained their internet access from the same source and that he personally, had installed their wifi system. Bar-restaurace U Soni, has been my main means of accessing the internet since moving to Stará Oleška, so it was a good recommendation. The technician further assured me that he would get an English-speaking staff member to phone me, to take the matter forward.

Unfortunately, I was once more greeted with silence as no phone call materialised. Therefore on the morning of Monday 29^th May, I braced myself and went in person to the office of JAW.cz in Decín. The young lady on the reception desk had very limited English. But between her very limited English and my very limited Czech, we made progress.

Putting my name into her computer immediately revealed details of the technician’s visit a week previously. Somebody could come and complete the installation the next day she promptly told me. Unfortunately I had a medical appointment back in Prague that day, but we agreed on Wednesday 31^st May at 14.00. But why no one had followed up the technician’s previous visit, I never did discover.

On Wednesday 31^st May, more than hour before he was due, the promised installer arrived. He happily went up the ladder into the upstairs front room and then climbed out the window onto the roof of the verandah. He fortunately discovered that the receiving dish for the wireless signal, could be attached to the base of the existing TV aerial. He also managed to bring the wire from the receiving dish into the house, through the existing hole for the TV aerial wire, without needing to drill a fresh one.

A power point located adjacent to the top of the ladder into the upstairs was the perfect place for the router and, in a relatively short period of time, my new internet connection was up and working. Cost CZK 1800/GBP 60.00, together with a monthly payment of CZK 319 / GBP 10.60.

Ricky has returned to Rícky

Ricky at Rícky v Orlických horách © Ricky Yates

I am writing this, sitting in the bar/dining room/lounge of Hotel Konšel, located in the small settlement that bears my name, Rícky v Orlických horách. Yes, after our short, very snowbound visit in early April this year, Ricky has returned to Rícky 🙂

This time, Sybille and I are here, hoping to spend the first eight days of two weeks of my annual leave, enjoying a walking holiday in the Orlické hory. And, if the hotel’s slightly dodgy wifi internet connection had allowed me, I would have posted this on the evening of Wednesday 26th June, as my first ever blogpost not posted from my office in the Chaplaincy Flat in Prague.

We arrived here on the afternoon of Monday 24th June, following a good week in which several positive things occurred.

On Thursday 20th June, TelefonicaO2 finally reconnected our landline phone and internet access at the Chaplaincy Flat, a few hours short of seventeen days from when it ceased to function. To once more have reliable internet access with a reasonable download speed, was a welcome relief for which we are both very thankful. Of course, now we are away from the Chaplaincy Flat, internet connections have once more become a little more intermittent 🙁

The same day, I drove out to Horažd’ovice, to meet up with my good friend Adrian Blank, in order to help me get the ‘Carly’ through its STK, the equivalent of a British MOT Test. It did eventually get through but, at the expense of two new front tyres and some work to re-align the front wheels. Adrian reckons, probably quite rightly, that hitting a few Czech potholes was probably the cause of the problem. But at least the ‘Carly’ is now deemed fit to be driven on Czech roads for another two years.

The third thing of note was our worship and post-services activities last Sunday. Not only was our Sung Eucharist extremely well attended, we also had the privilege of having a guest preacher, Rev’d Dr Peter Walker. Peter and I trained for ordained ministry together at Wycliffe Hall, between 1987-1989. After serving his title in a parish in Kent, Peter has had an academic career, including a spell back at Wycliffe on the teaching staff. He is now Professor of Biblical Studies at Trinity School for Ministry, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. His challenging sermon, which has now been uploaded to our Church website, was widely appreciated by the congregation.

Churchwarden Richard York with Rev'd Dr Peter Walker © Ricky Yates — Churchwarden Richard York with Rev’d Dr Peter Walker © Ricky Yates

Following worship, many of us migrated to the nearby park on Lannova, a street that lies between the Church and the Vltava River, for our annual summer Picnic-in-the-Park. The picnic is always a good opportunity for fun & fellowship before many in the congregation are often away from Prague for several weeks, visiting family and friends in their home countries. Peter and his wife Georgie were able to join us for the picnic and very much enjoyed meeting and talking to members of the St. Clement’s congregation.

Last week was also notable for some very hot and sticky weather, in stark contrast to all of the rain earlier in the month, which was responsible for the very serious flooding in Prague and elsewhere in the western half of the Czech Republic. Fortunately the weather turned a little cooler at the weekend, but still dry except for a few spots of rain – ideal conditions for our picnic. Ideal weather, so I thought, for our walking holiday commencing the next day.

Unfortunately, Monday 24th June dawned cold, grey and with light rain. And when we set out late that morning on the Prague-Hradec Králové motorway, we drove through a positive downpour! However, just before reaching Rícky some three hours later, the rain stopped, allowing us an enjoyable short circular walk around the somewhat scattered settlement, after we had checked into the hotel.

But that dry couple of hours proved illusory. It was followed by forty-eight hours of continuous rain, meaning a couple of expeditions in the car but no walking in the hills. The rain finally stopped on Wednesday evening, so our walking holiday in the Orlické hory finally began today. Watch this space!

Living without being connected to the internet for a week

The Lahovice interchange south of Prague where the ring road crosses the main road south from Prague city centre. The top photo is how it should be; the bottom photo is how it was on Monday 3rd March 2013

Last Monday evening (3rd June), just as I was uploading photographs to illustrate a draft blog post about the serious flooding we were experiencing in Prague, our connection to the internet died. I soon discovered that the cause of the problem was that our landline phone was also dead – our broadband internet connection is via the landline.

Awaking on Tuesday morning, to find that we still did not have a functioning internet connection, I contacted Gordon the Church Treasurer using my mobile phone, to explain the problem. Although the contract with our service provider O2, is in my name, the monthly bill is sent electronically to Gordon, for him to settle directly from the Church account. Gordon assured me that O2 had an English-speaking helpline and he would contact them and let me know the outcome.

When Gordon contacted O2, the English-speaking helpline offered a recorded message saying that ‘no English-speaking operators were available’, whilst the Czech helpline, upon entering our phone number, produced another recorded message saying that there were ‘technical issues in our area’ but with no indication as to when these ‘technical issues’ might be resolved. The only contact Gordon or I have had from O2 was a Czech text message to my mobile phone last Friday afternoon, promising that compensation for loss of service will be included in next month’s bill.

Having no internet access in my office in the Chaplaincy Flat for six days, has been utterly frustrating. It has also made me very conscious of how reliant I am upon being able to send and receive emails, at little more than the click of a mouse.

But it isn’t just the restrictions that this situation has placed upon me, but also the expectations of those I serve. The assumption that if someone sends me an email, they will receive a prompt reply. Within a couple of days, I had a phone call on my mobile from one of the congregation, most surprised that I hadn’t replied to his email – a simple request for a contact name and phone number to which I would have normally have replied within a few hours.

Fortunately, the purchase of a new laptop computer just over a year ago, has meant that I have managed to make a connection with the internet from time to time, by going to various local bar-restaurants more frequently than normal 🙂 in order to avail myself of their wifi. So I’ve learned to write emails and save them in my drafts folder, and then send them once I get to the pub! But it isn’t the most ideal way to work. Honestly!

Sybille has a fairly common response whenever I ask her something. If she doesn’t immediately know the answer to my question, then she firmly tells me to ‘google it!’ But of course, I cannot ‘google it’, if we have no internet connection. Likewise, when compiling the ‘Weekly Bulletin’ for Sunday worship this past week, I couldn’t click onto the Church of England website and copy and paste the Collect of the Day – I ended up typing it word by word from a book instead. And trying to update the Chaplaincy website 🙁

All along, we have assumed that the ‘technical issues’ to which O2 referred in their recorded message, related to the serious flooding of recent days – that flood-water had got into their system somewhere. So when on Saturday morning, I met Jana who lives on the ground floor of our apartment block, I asked her if she had the same problems with phone and internet as we do. I was surprised when she said she had experienced no interruption to service at all.

Then yesterday evening, about an hour before I got back from Brno from officiating at our regular monthly evening service there, Sybille decided to ask Kamila who lives across the second floor landing from us, if her phone and internet were working. She too, had not had any problems. Even better, Kamila kindly gave Sybille the log-in details to her wifi network, to allow us to piggyback onto her system until O2 get around to resolving their ‘technical difficulties in our area’. So after six long days, both Sybille and I are finally back online.

Kamila’s network only works in our sitting room so I’ve had to temporarily migrate from my office, to the dining table. But her service provider, who also seem to be used by many others in our immediate neighbourhood, say they only need an existing phone landline, in order to provide broadband internet. Therefore, when we do finally get a functioning landline once again, O2 will promptly lose a customer. But when that will be is anyone’s guess. By the time I post this, our landline will have been dead for a whole seven days, and still counting 🙁