While I’m no tech wizard, I know my way around a good bit of software and hardware…computer, networking, coding, etc. For example, I know enough html and css to have taken a basic WordPress template and customized it to become this site. Home networking is usually a snap. Until a service provider decides to mess with you.
I live in a “dead zone” for AT&T cellular service, which all five of my family’s iPhones run on. Happily, AT&T offers a micro cell tower for your home to boost the signal so you get full bars. It simply plugs into your wireless modem/router. For nearly three years, it’s been working fine. Then AT&T decided to change how information gets exchanged, or not exchanged in this case, with the micro cell tower, the router, and the AT&T network. And they didn’t tell anyone.
So…all of a sudden, lights on the micro cell tower start blinking. I know something’s up, and I can’t make calls…”No service” is showing on my iPhone. Not good. I go through all the standard troubleshooting steps, no luck. I call my internet service provider, and I’m informed AT&T changed their protocol on data ports, and I’ll have to reconfigure my modem/router.
Fine. I use a whiz bang ASUS router that has a straightforward web tool, a graphic interface, which is easy to use. I go to AT&T’s support site, and lo and behold I find advanced settings and firewall instructions. They are old, generic (my router isn’t listed) and don’t work. Horrible.
So I turn, naturally, to Google for help. I’m happy to find an AT&T video on YouTube, called, miraculously, “AT&T 3G MicroCell Firewall and Router Settings for Advanced Installations–AT&T How-To Series,” which purports to “show” you how to configure your router. My hopes soar that this’ll be a snap fix.
Until I watch the video. Hopes dash.
Here it is. All they did was read the horrible instructions. No show, only tell. It’s all of two minutes, but you’ll get why I wanted to pull my hair out 20 seconds in.
[youtube_sc url=”NsVfFuyf4d0″]
Seriously? Speak English!