(Sidenote: I have no problem with support people being located in other countries, but why do all the help people in the Philippines and India repeat your every sentence before answering the most basic question, making the call 5 times longer than it needs to be? At least support people in the U.S. know have to have a dialog or conversation. I wonder how much less our hold time would be if the companies would just train their overseas support staff to have a conversation rather than mechanically repeat every word we say and then, even worse, sum up every few minutes.)
Essentially, the Netgear support person told me since the router was two weeks past its warranty expiration, I could either pay $100 for a service contract or $40 for a one time help fee to have their support people diagnose the problem and "reconfigure" the router if necessary. They couldn't or wouldn't explain what might make reconfiguration necessary. I think what they intended to do was take my money and then have me grant them access to my computer so they could try and find the problem and fix it. I asked why I couldn't reconfigure it myself. They said I could and I might find an article on "reconfiguring" on their support site. I hung up on them. (I never did find such an article, but I only spent 10 minutes looking. It would have taken two days to comb through all the articles on their support site.)
(Sidenote 2: I'm tired of downloading programs that give these people access to my computer to rummage around in their attempt to fix things. Too often they make it worse and make changes I have no idea how to undo afterwards.)
A little while later, the TL kid came over to drop something off (totally unrelated to this) and even though he was in a hurry, he tried for an hour to restore the wireless connection. No luck. He's pretty handy with this stuff, and since he approaches computer problems totally differently than I do, between us, we usually cover most of the bases. Not this time.
He left and I kept at it. I upgraded the firmware. That prompted the router to reset itself yet again. Then I tried again to activate the wireless. And all of a sudden there appeared a little note that said in order to turn the wireless on or back on, I had to physically press the wireless button on the router. After figuring out which of the 7 or 8 buttons on the router was the wireless button, I pressed it. My wireless was back.
What made it go off? Who knows.
So if I'm not blaming the router or Comcast, and was able to log on from the living room using a LAN, why am I writing this?
First, because when I google my router, I see a lot of people are having the same issue. And the answers in Netgear's "community " support forums are all over the place.
Second, because it seems Netgear is clearly aware of the problem with this particular router suddenly not recognizing customary networks for no apparent reason.
They should have a fix prominently displayed with an accurate description on their support site, or send out a mass email to registered users telling them what to do if this happens (they have no problems mass-emailing ads for new products.) Well, it turns out they kind of do have a fix on their website, but the title doesn't tell you it's a fix. They call it "Enabling the wireless network using the WiFi button" (as if it's for first time set-up rather than sudden cessation after the router has worked fine for months). Why couldn't they just have called it " a fix " and called it something like "If Your router No Longer Recognizes Your Network"?
Third, and most importantly, what this ordeal made crystal clear to me is that companies like our cable and internet providers, manufacturers of modems and routers, and the like absolutely own us. We have ceded all control over some of the most important connections in our lives to them. We pay our bills online, get our mail online, receive important messages from doctors and banks (and in my case, courts) online.
In other words, when even one of these necessary components to accessing the internet stops working and we can't access the internet, we're screwed. How did we get to a point where we gave up so much control over our lives? Medium and large businesses have IT departments on beck and call. What do consumers have? Zilch, but a choice between opening their wallets and/or wasting hours of their time that could be spent so much more productively doing other things.
As for Netgear, I'm not happy that I lost 5 hours today for no apparent reason. I will probably buy another brand next time around. Not because another brand will be problem-free (it won't) but because there needs to be accountability for their un-helpfulness and for me, it starts with customer loyalty.
If you have any rants about wasted time due to hardware, software, or cable, internet or other service providers, feel free to post them. Just keep them free of potentially liable remarks like "X is a thief" and profanity. Let us know what happened and how you felt. Writing this out made me feel better, I'm just offering you a place to do the same.
(Endnote: I would have prefaced this post with an embedded you tube of the Eagles' "Wasted Time," but as usual, the Eagles' minions have scoured You Tube scrubbing all versions of it for "copyright reasons." At this point in their career, they should welcome the attention to their 40 year old songs.)
