Jonathan Field - Maker of Random Stuff

Monthly Archives: September 2012

Finally – Thalana High School Internet!

When I left South Africa this past May we had successfully networked Thalana High School, but we were still waiting on the local Telkom to hook up the DSL line. At the time we thought this would take a few weeks. And I really should know better than to take such an optimistic estimate at face value.

As it turned out, when Telkom did come to hook up the DSL a month or so later, there was some kind of line problem at the pole and it didn’t work. So they left and told us they’d fix it when they got a chance.

Then a bit after that the school fell behind in their phone payments and suddenly Telkom wasn’t feeling all that motivated to get the DSL fixed. And if I thought they were slow when they were motivated…

Anyway, I had tried to keep things rolling with persistant encouraging emails, but it soon became apparent it was out of my hands and was going to resolve itself, or not, of its own accord. As of a couple weeks ago I had more or less given up and I assumed I’d have to try getting things back on track when I returned.

Then today, out of the blue, I got an email from the CAT teacher Lucky, proclaiming that the internet was finally up and running! He included a picture of him accessing his hotmail account from the lab. This totally made my day. Now I’m re-fired up to see what we can accomplish next year.

It’s not always two steps forward one step back… sometimes it’s just very slow steps.

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