Change is fine but just make it clear

NBN Co tells me the "good news''.

I can now connect to the NBN network.

But, I'm informed, I must have a new modem installed.

That's fine. They've sent me a Connect Kit, which is supposed to help.

Unfortunately, it contains little useful information.

They tell me I have to contact service providers to find out which plans are available.

Fine.

Up until now I've had two service providers. I would be happy to continue with this arrangement.

Yes, I know I could spend 3000 hours researching the alternatives and calculating which bundle would be cheapest, but frankly I'd rather shoot myself.

Can I just continue much as I have been with my two providers?

Unfortunately ,my two service providers give me different answers.

One says, "With Fibre to the Node your 'landline number' is converted to a digital voice service that works over your NBN broadband as a 'single' bundle plan service, [on] which voice and internet will be pre-configured in your NBN router, which you will then plug your phone and computer devices into."

The other says "Customers can keep their home phone with them and have internet with another provider."

So where do you go to find out the truth?

NBN Co, I thought, would be the honest broker, so I emailed them.

They told me I would be getting fibre to the node.

"I know that you idiot," I felt like responding. After all I've been following the political argument.

That's what Turnbull promised and that's what his government is delivering.

I didn't reply like that.

I sent the question again. Can I have one provider giving my landline telephone service and another providing my email and internet?

The next reply thanked me for providing my home address and told me that I needed to contact a service provider to arrange installation.

For a third time, I emailed the specific question. After all what else is there to do in this world but spend time trying to work out what broadband service is appropriate?

Thinking this might be of interest to others and worthy of a column, I contacted NBN Co's media department.

They told me my phone and broadband would go through one connection.

But, if I wanted, it was possible to have the two providers as long as I got an extra line.

I have to admit that my frustration with all this is in part driven by the fact that I'm sick of change. I've had enough.

When I was young I was taught to write with a nib pen dipped in ink. The pressure on the nib had to be just right and the pen had to be held at exactly the right angle, which changed depending on whether you were doing an upstroke or a downstroke.

Ballpoint pens were an absolute no-no.

Then ballpoint pens took over. Everything I'd learnt was a waste of time.

I was also taught to write with loops and curves. Then somebody ordered a change of style.

In arithmetic I learnt how many inches in a foot, feet in a yard and yards in a mile. I learnt how many ounces in a pound, pounds in a stone and stones in a hundredweight.

Then the authorities very sensibly decided to dump all that.

Future generations have benefited.

But I am lumbered with all this useless knowledge.

The same is true of the money. I learnt pounds, shillings and pence – £. s. d. to those of you who no longer need to know.

Note here that the symbol for a pound is £ and for pence is d. What idiot decided that?

Again the change was right. Future generations have benefited.

My class at grammar school rightly rebelled against having to learn Latin and only a small part of my life was wasted on that.

Along came computers.

My partner and I were among the first to take up the new technology.

Using our Apple II we learnt all sorts of codes to do tricky things like putting a capital letter at the star of a sentence.

It was still worth it. You could edit and rewrite text and overall it saved time.

Then along came Macs. What a breakthrough.

All those annoying IBM/Microsoft codes were unnecessary.

You could click and drag. It was intuitive. Microsoft eventually came up with Windows – the poor-performing cousin of the Mac system, but easy enough.

Those under 30 today don't realise how lucky they are.

They still have to put up with Microsoft arbitrarily introducing new operating systems.

But the toys and social media they play with – mobile phones, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat etc – are relatively easy to use. A two-year-old can now scroll down a screen and navigate the net.

It's not like the old days when you got the Microsoft blue screens of death and had to remember a string of codes to get it back to work.

The bad news is that we all now live with bugs, viruses, Trojan horses, malware, worms and trolls.

The IT development coincided with privatisation.

Privatisation means that instead of getting an electricity bill once a month, you now get nightly calls from people in south Asia.

If that's not enough, door-to-door salespeople drop by just as you sit down to dinner. (Given the cost of employing all these people, can present electricity services really be cheaper than the old monopoly system?)

To know what to buy you need a series of spreadsheets.

But life is for living and it saves time if you blindly accept your first offer.

Alternatively, you can accept a service that promises to tell you the best mobile phone and landline bundles available, or the best travel, hotel or insurance package.

And all you have to do is trust that you're not enlarging this century's major growth industry –​ scamming.