On Saturday morning the internet connection at home suddenly stopped working. So we called Shanghai Telecom, and we were told that they would look into it and call us back. Well, by midnight we still did not get a call back, so we decided to call again. They forgot about it, but they would check right away. According to them nothing was wrong, so it was our fault. Nice to know of course, but it did not help much. So I started checking our equipment and that revealed that our router, that we got from Shanghai Telecom, was not working anymore. So another call to them, where they told us that someone would come by before 12 the next day to change it.

At 8 AM Sunday morning our phone rang, Shanghai Telecom on the line. They told us there was a little problem, because it was not their router. Not their router? Yes, they told us, it was delivered by one of their agents, so it was the agents mistake and not their responsibility. My wife, who was talking to them, then got pretty angry. If Shanghai Telecom uses agents for their work, that is not our business. We do business with Shanghai Telecom and pay them the fees, so they should take the responsibility. A long and heated discussion followed, but in the end we only got one small step further. Shanghai Telecom would call their agent and they would contact us.

And luckily they did: One hour later a worker showed up, but after looking at the router he said it was not their router… Also he explained that he had no knowledge about routers. He made several phone calls with his boss, and it was decided to send another worker. So another hour goes by, and another guy shows up. Also he says that this is not their router, and maybe the employee who installed it last year had installed one that he had bought himself. This employee had left the company in the mean time, so they could not check. By that time we got tired of the whole thing, and decided to buy a new router ourselves (but together with the guy, to make sure we buy the right one). Luckily we live close to the biggest IT mall in Shanghai, so that only took 15 minutes. The worker installed it, and things worked fine again, after about 28 hours without internet. Next time I just buy a router myself and don’t even bother to contact Shanghai Telecom. I hope their monopoly will be over soon.