Wednesday 8th of February 2023
What is the heck going on in the middle of the zoom meeting??
I began to investigate our landline (copper line) and internet connection. I unplugged, retested and turned off the router, then turn back on. Nothing was back to resume at all around 1045am.
Oh, bother, I will send the messages via messenger from my mobile because of the mobile data. Mm, not so helpful because of the exact instructions I must follow for testing. Blah blah, there have been outages across the North Island and the top part of the South Island. Oh, by looking at the Chorus outage app on my mobile. Crikey! I got a response from my partner and the staff – Spark saying they are working on it as soon as possible. One team sympathised with me.
Time ticking away, time ticking away to evening 9 pm, and nothing resumed or restored the line. We wondered if it would be a very long time because we have been there before along with our local neighbours for five days – yep, five days was a very long time, and my emails and messages kept piling up. At least I popped into my work office in the city of Hamilton twice a week. My partner wanted to look up google search, read Waikato Times/NZ Herald and watch YouTube in the evening due to boring television programmes every evening. I tried to read newspapers, do online jigsaw puzzles and catch up on social media.
There was a pressing, urgent email I need to send out as soon as I wish for today, but hopefully tomorrow, I will be in another meeting, and I will send it off quickly as I can first thing in the morning. First, I would need to do the grocery for a deaf older man because his request was an ice cream on his grocery list. I could not fax him today because he does not have internet or mobile. After all, he hates it, wasting money, and his age is 91. His family does not have a fax machine, and they live out of the city, but the other family members are busy working, and one family member is in the hospital for surgery. It was impossible and challenging to access communication when the line was down.
Thursday, 9th of February 2023
We woke up at 5 am as my partner goes to work by 6 am from Monday to Friday. I turned on the router while my partner picked up the handset phone – disappointed result: red light on the router and the sound of the landline tone dead. Oh, bother, and we knew we had more than two days in a row. My partner left for work, and I headed back to sleep for another hour before a full-day meeting with the EGL Waikato Leadership in Hamilton. I took my laptop instead of my Ipad and headed out for the discussion around 850am. Several quick check emails, read Waikato Times and NZ Herald through break times at Trust Waikato, Hamilton. I headed home instead of doing the grocery for one Deaf senior until tomorrow as it was 445pm. Finally got home at 515pm, let our three dogs out for fresh air and exercise, and ran as I switched on the router. Darn, there goes the red light again, and it was not good enough for our local Eureka community. My partner got home later and asked me for any good news – I replied no. Another day and night until I rechecked the outage by Chorus and discovered our landline, including our local neighbours, would resume around Saturday 11th. Yep, SATURDAY, as I told my partner, his reply was bloody hell.
Tomorrow I will be heading back to the city of Hamilton as I have two jobs as a support worker and work in my office at the Social Service, then to pick up my partner as he leaves his truck at the depot for the maintenance job. Another long day for me tomorrow.
Friday 10th February
I woke up in the morning usual and there is no change. We, Eureka local people still been affected by the outage for three days in a row. Now I am in my office in Hamilton City and catching up on emails, printing off materials and cleaning up unwanted emails from my inbox. Our bill was paid this morning. The director of my workplace was affected too and she learnt a bit more detail about why the outage happened across North Island. It was something to do with upgrading copper broadband and fibre lines.
Many D/deaf people and D/deaf with disabilities love to communicate through social media such as video chat, zoom, and emails. Many unique technologies today than in the old days make our life better. Despite Broadband’s high cost, the fibre line shot up in the sky as three-quarters of D/deaf people could not afford to pay the line while one-quarter could pay the line because they work like me. There are no cheaper costs for Broadband with a good speed, and I know there is one called Skinny Broadband. I researched this company through Lockdown for the D/deaf people I support and obtained three modems from Skinny for them to stay in touch with their families through Lockdown. Many senior D/deaf people and D/deaf people with disabilities preferred to use fax machines in the past, and only less than one-quarter of them still use fax machines which I kept for four-five D/deaf with disabilities seniors from home. We cannot hear a voice over the telephone and mobile for many years.
Telecommunication companies and Chorus needs to think about people living in a rural area like us who run businesses in the tiny township. D/deaf people and D/deaf with disabilities need to reach out and stay in touch through communication while the line is up and running smoothly, NOT DOWN and struck down without contact or minimal promise of mobile data to top-up. We know a bill is due today (Wednesday 8th), but we are not paying until the online is up and running. Because I don’t have time to pop in Spark business after 430pm in Hamilton, it will take me to drive home 15 minutes to 20 minutes from the city of Hamilton tomorrow. I do not use online payment from my mobile because it is not ideal and safe. What senior people live in the rural countryside or retirement villages? Family and friends who have been isolated away from another area during a natural disaster like flooding in Thames-Coromandel cannot use Broadband and landline or without landline/broadband.
There must be another way of resolving this problem now and in the future. At the end of this incident, we do not have any reason why there were massive outages again. Last time, our local community went without landline/broadband for five days until we learnt the small, transformed line station caught fire in our local area. They (Telecommunication) and Chorus did not let us know why we received no apology in the first place. We continue to pay the bill in full instead of minus five days charge cost.
Life in Eureka 