Tension Tamer

I have frequent trouble sleeping. I've tried many sleeping pills, but none of them work every time, and some leave me feeling hung-over. One of the more effective sleep inducers I've found is an all-natural Herbal Tea from Celestial Seasonings called TensionTamer. It is available in most better supermarkets in Panama, but I buy mine from Riba Smith, It's all natural herbs and is very relaxing. If you have occasional bouts of insomnia, you might want to give it a try.

War with Cable and Wireless - The Ongoing Saga

As I write this, we are now reduced to checking our email with a Tutopia.com dialup account. On Thursday, Cable and Wireless finally decided to check their equipment at the DCO (Dial Central Office) and our internet connection came back up with full speed. The Tech called here and confirmed we had a good connection. I told him that everything looked good, but I noticed that we now had a different IP address, after almost 5 years of having the same address. He told me that he had connected us to a different subnet. Every thing worked fine for about 4 hours and then we lost our connection. Friday, Nora and I both had clients so we were unable to sit by the door waiting for someone to show up. This brings up a very sore point with me. So far, I've wasted time on 5 different days waiting for C&W to show up at the house, when I knew from day one that the problem is not my equipment and that it started when they changed the cable in front of my house. They should be able to look at the service record and see where they fixed the problem on Thursday and at least go there first. Why do I have to sit at home, wasting my time, when the problem isn't here? We were two weeks into the problem before we could get anyone from their internet service shop to even take a look. The POTS guys tried, but they simply aren't equipped with either training or tools to fix this kind of problem.

On Thursday, we had to resort to our free Tutopia dial up account to check email and then got more nasty news. Our connection speed was still only 12 kbps, when we had always had 40 ~ 48 before they changed the cable. So, even though they say there is nothing wrong with the cable, there apparently is. Or  maybe it's something more sinister. See below.

This brings up another subject which is rapidly moving Cable and Wireless toward inclusion on my 'Evil Empire' list. With this month's bill, they included a letter announcing new billing policies regarding the free dialup internet services, of which Tutopia.com is one. Effective August 15, if you have either 'Plan Premier' or 'Plan Premier Plus' you will be restricted to 2500 minutes connection time with any of the free services. Any time over 2500 minutes will be billed at $.015 per minute. The only way to get around this is to subscribe to Cable and Wireless's own free dialup service. If I'm right in my suspicions, C&W is deliberately throttling the free ISPs to prevent them being used to make VOiP calls, and to degrade the quality of their service. Whatever the truth, it appears the big gorilla is whacking the smaller monkeys in the head. Haven't these people ever heard of competing by offering a superior service? I can confidently predict that when C&W succeeds in driving the other free providers out of business, they will once again start charging for their dialup.

Now, as if I weren't already frustrated enough, on Saturday I called C&W to activate the free dialup account which comes with our Plan Premier, and was told that Nora has to do it, and she was out for the day. The tech who was supposed to be here at 9:30 am hadn't arrived or called. At 11:00 I called C&W and was assured that the tech would be here that morning. At 12:30, they promised he would arrive that afternoon. At 2:30 they told me he wasn't coming because the damage wasn't in my equipment (something I told them 17 days ago). When Nora got home at 4:00 and we still had no internet connection, she called and they told her the tech had gone home for the weekend. Now, by this time we were both getting perturbed, so she asked to speak to a supervisor. There was, of course, none available, because the internet support crew apparently works without supervision. I could be wrong, but on the several occasions I've asked to speak with a supervisor, there has never been one available. The person on the phone told Nora that there is major damage in the DCO and nothing could be done until Monday. Now, at last I begin to get a glimmer of understanding of the problem. Nobody at Cable and Wireless gives a %^%$&$^$#$ about their customers. How on earth can they allow their techs to go home at quitting time when they have major damage in a DCO? I would have been fired out of hand if I had done anything that irresponsible when I was a telecommunications shop supervisor.

However this is finally resolved, Nora and I have decided that we cannot trust Cable and Wireless to provide the connectivity and communications which we must have to run our business, so we are going to bite the bullet and get a second provider next week, probably Wisper. Maybe if we have ADSL, wireless, and dialup, we can count on at least one of them working. I know that some of you are going to write me and tell me about your good experiences with some other provider, and I sincerely hope you continue to have good experiences. For what it's worth, we've had Cable and Wireless for almost 10 years with good service all that time, right up until some genius decided to fix something that wasn't broke. C&W is fine as long as nothing breaks. When something does break though, be prepared for a long session of frustration and outright bald-faced lies from their technical staff.

Buying a Used Car - Feedback From Readers

Here's a tip from Robert Joy - One very useful tool to take with you when looking at a second hand vehicle is a magnet, a small pocket magnet. Why you are asking. If you suspect that the vehicle has been repaired or bogged up, is to place the magnet on the body or area that is suspected. If it's been filled with putty or fibre glass the magnet will not cling to anything other than metal.

Patel Motors are the worse place to buy from, stay away from those guys.

And this from Robert Crusoe - Just some food for thought, but try looking around here in David. I find that most of the car companies are very honest and the sales personnel  do their best to get you what you need at a good price and in good shape. I have seen several 7 passenger cars for sale and to transfer the registration and tag to Panama City is not a problem. 

The website: Because of the problems with Cable and Wireless, I haven't been able to upload changes to the website. Maybe on Monday.

Service and Assistance for People Who Want to Live in Panama