I woke up around 8 AM. It was the 2nd day of my vacation, and I thought 'nice, I'm already sleeping in. It usually takes me about a few days to start waking up later naturally'. Then I noticed that my phone couldn't connect to the wi-fi at home. I also noticed that my phone had an "EMERGENCY CALLS ONLY" message, but I didn't think much of it. Figuring that my phone data would kick in, I tried starting up SINoALICE (a phone game I play everyday). When it failed to load two times, I checked the Play Store to see if SINO had a new update. When the Play Store failed to process the search, saying it couldn't find a network connection, that's when I started thinking, 'Is the internet down... for BOTH the home and my phone??!' D:
To be honest, I never really thought this kind of situation would ever happen to me. I thought if the home internet ever went down, I'd still be able to use my phone data if I needed online access. That has happened before -- I have used my phone data when the home internet wasn't working. So for both the home and phone to be down at the same time -- I was internally shocked.
'Colo...'. I started getting anxious. Today was the last day for Gran Colo, a guild vs. guild tournament of sorts in SINO. If I couldn't get on SINO, I wouldn't be able to participate... and having no access to the internet, I couldn't even get on Discord to communicate that to the guild! Usually if somebody can't make it to colo, they would give a heads up early in the day and the guild would try to find a "pilot": somebody else who would be available to play the person's account for that time. It's a trust-based system (the pilot could steal the account after getting access), and it's been done multiple times in the past with other guild members.
'Calm down,' I told myself. 'This is Rogers -- a big company. The internet should be fixed in a couple of hours.' I took a deep breath. Colo was over 11 hours away. This current issue might become a non-issue by the time colo came around. I looked at my general list of to-dos for my vacation. What did I list that could be done offline? After deciding, I turned on the TV and started playing Drakengard 1 on the PS2.
I've already beaten Drakengard 1 many months ago, but only for a few endings. I want to reach all the endings, so I can start the Nier series. As I played, I tried resetting the modem every now and then and tried re-starting my phone, just in case the internet was fixed and the connection just needed to be reset. I also thought about what to do if the internet wasn't fixed by noon. Below were some ideas:
-go out and buy an internet hotspot device
-visit a friend (unannounced) in hopes they will let me use their wi-fi
-visit my sister and hubby's place (unannounced) in hopes they will let me use their wi-fi
-connect to some wi-fi somewhere
In the back of my head, I thought 'Good thing I wasn't working today.'
When 1 PM rolled around, I checked my phone. Still nothing. 'Okay. Time to go out.' I had a few errands to do outside anyway. I prepped myself, ate some lunch, and ventured downtown. During the commute, I wondered if I should even try attempting to visit my friend or my sister and her hubby. I decided against it because I really prefer double-checking if I could visit (and I couldn't because my phone was down -- could not text nor call), and I know it's not really an emergency... (just an emergency in my mind). That left either buying an internet hotspot device or connecting to some wi-fi somewhere. But first -- my errands (which involved standing in line for an unknown amount of time).
After doing my errands, it was close to 5 PM. I decided to travel to a Tim Horton's nearby and try connecting to their wi-fi. I couldn't connect. I guess they were also having internet issues. I was feeling desperate. I personally did not want to buy an internet hotspot device... mainly because I didn't really know much about them and what it would mean to own one. Would it involve signing up for another monthly service? I'd want to do some research first. But I didn't want to let my guildmates down... reluctantly, I went back to the subway station and started heading to a Best Buy location.
While in the subway, I wondered if the subway's wi-fi would work. I agreed to their terms of service (without reading them), watched an ad, and I was connected! O_O!!!!!! I got off the next stop and stayed there, messaging the guild on Discord about needing a pilot. I took this chance to log into SINO and did as many of the daily missions that I could. Every now and then I would need to reload to stay logged in to SINO so I went as fast as I could. Then I went for broke and did my daily missions for Dx2 and Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage, two other phone games I play daily. I already did the daily missions for Fate / Grand Order the night before so I didn't have to worry about that. I wonder how many passerbys gave me strange looks as I sat there, tapping away on my phone. Especially the ones who saw me playing a rhythm game with no sound.
It was about 5:45 PM when I was done. I took the subway home and continued playing Drakengard 1 for the rest of the night. Around 6:45 PM, I received a text message from a co-worker friend asking if I had internet. I sent out a text response but didn't hear back. I sent out a "testing" text message to another friend but no response. At some point, I remembered it was a friend's birthday and forgot to say "Happy Birthday!" on their Facebook page. The home internet and phone were still down before I turned in for the night (just past midnight).
And that was my day without internet.
Looking back on it, I'm a bit surprised at myself on how desperate I was to get internet. To even think about visiting somebody out of the blue to use their wi-fi... that's not really me, hahaha. I don't like inconveniencing others. I don't like to feel like I'm using anybody. If nobody was counting on me for anything that day, I would be fine being completely offline.
I might try looking into a different phone provider so if something like this happens again, my phone would still work, or vice versa. It would be kind of sad if two different providers lost service on the same day (at the same time).
I will also look into what an internet hotspot device actually is, even if it's just to talk myself out of ever considering one for this kind of situation.
When I woke up the next morning (today), the internet and phone service were restored (yay!), though the home internet is still spotty. I tried tuning into a Twitch stream earlier in the day and I couldn't even connect to Twitch chat, and the stream would lose connection every now and then. Hopefully the service gets restored to all those affected soon.
That's it for this blog. If you read all of this... really... thanks for reading! :)
If you have any comments or anything, feel free.
Take care, stay safe, and until next time!
No comments:
Post a Comment