The eagle-eyed of you might have noticed yesterday that I said my Bürgeramt ordeal is not over. As I said, the Bürgeramt was just a means to an end. They hand out a specific document and then I can get Internet (among other things, like paying taxes). Oh yes, the Internet. That concept has taken on a whole new meaning for me here in Berlin.
When Is BT Not BT?
The physical telecomms infrastructure in Germany is all controlled by Deutsche Telekom who also provide services on top. Other companies also have the ability to sell services on top of this physical infrastructure. Deutsche Telekom used to be state-owned/controlled.
Sounds familiar?
Both BT and Deutsche Telekom appear to have a very similar attitude and by that I mean that neither have learned properly that they have to compete on services and so they abuse their monopoly on the infrastructure to be a pain in the ass. Case in point... When you go to "the Internet" shop (it really does not matter which provider) and buy the Internet, you always end up dealing with Deutsche Telekom. In my case, I was told I would have to wait three weeks before DT we could around to my flat...
Interlude: On Speaking German
In Berlin it is fairly easy to survive on speaking a little German. I have heard stories of people having been in this city for years and basically making no effort with the language. Because, you really don't need to if you don't want to. Many Germans seem to be quite tolerant of this. It is a very nice trait of the local character. Before too long, I will make effort to learn German. For now, I am grateful to live in a town that is tolerant of my rudimentary German language skills.
Die Männer von Telekom: 1
So the three weeks pass and the first Telekom engineer comes around. He speaks absolutely no English whatsoever. No problem. I knew enough to grunt and point my way through the conversation. He took the main TAE Dose off the wall and inspected the wiring behind before hooking up the testing equipment. We then went all the way down into my cellar and he looked into the DT-owned demarcation point (a bad example fo which can be seen at the right hand side of he header image). He attached the other half of the testing equipment and grunted something at me. He waved some magic wand-like device around the demarcation point and grunted some more. Back up the 6 flights of stairs to my flat.
He knelt before the expose wiring again.
He looked up at me.
He shrugged.
He then offered me the only two words in English that he appeared to know...
"It's fucked!"
This appointment happened to be the day before I flew back to Scotland for the independence referendum. While I was away, my landlord sent around another engineer who told me what I suspected: that the wiring was all brand new and that there was nothing wrong at all. Specifically, he reported the problem was in fact that the line from my flat was not plugged into the demarcation point... As evinced by the large, loose cable with my address on it, in the basement. How had the first engineer (and me for that matter) missed this?
Die Männer von Telekom: 2
Earlier this week, after another long mutli-week wait, a second engineer visited. He came to my flat only to put the testing equipment in and then headed straight to the basement where he plugged my flat's cable into the demarcation point. He tested it (at least appeared to) and everything was OK. We climbed the 6 flights of stairs up to my flat, he double checks the line and off he ran! "Just give it 5 to 10 minutes", he said.
Nope. It's fucked.
Let The Finger Pointing Begin!
So now DT are blaming my ISP for the problems and my ISP are blaming DT. My next engineer visit is on Friday morning and my gin consumption is rising.
