The Compound Tower

    

September 27, 2009 by David DeWall  
Filed under Dave D., Feature

Wouldn’t be able to spend all day on the Internet without The Tower. Sits about 10 ft from our front porch here in San Miguel, Jordan in Guimaras province;  I call our place “The Compound”. We have thirteen folks currently residing here. Oh, I could take a short walk to the local Internet cafes. Only 20 pesos an hour, not bad. But I wanted a high speed, super-duper, fast-as-lightning Internet connection where I plug in my MagicJack and talk to my Dad in Vegas or anyone else with a landline back in the States.  A connection where I could whiz (lot of that goes around here in our little rural province) around the Internet with blinding speed.

Went to the Smart store in nearby Iloilo at the SM City Mall. Explained my desire to have broadband service. Said a business that was fairly close to us had service, Albert’s Motorcycle Shop (wife tells me the shop owners’ were sponsors in our wedding; we had two weddings, but that’s another story.) Every time I turn around we run into someone that was a sponsor or someone who is a relative, and Sainted Patient Wife asks if I remember them. I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast this morning let alone someone that attended our wedding five years ago or a relative I had met years ago.

The nice lady at Smart says they will send someone to survey our site to see if we can get their broadband service called Smart Bro. So I gave the lady 999 pesos in advance for the first month’s service, and wait for a Smart Bro rep to show up.

A few days later a guy pulls up on a motor scooter by the name of Moises. “The Compound” sits quite a bit lower from Albert’s Motorcycle Shop tower location; Albert has a 35 foot tower, but we might need a higher tower. “How high?” I ask. “Maybe 60 feet, sir.” replies Moises. “How much?” I ask. “18,000 pesos, sir.” replies Moises. That’s a pretty good chunk of change, I gulp and think to myself. Moises says he will do a site check from his tower at 35 feet and let me know how it goes.

Moises texts me later in the day. Thirty-five feet won’t work. No LOS (Line of Sight) at that height. No signal. Do I want to go with the 60 foot tower? I text him back to go ahead with the 60 footer. Now just a couple of weeks before “The Chief”, the local police officer who of course is another relative, came by with his friend Roy ( of course my wife is related to Roy’s wife.) Roy is now our architect/contractor on some work being done at “The Compound”. Anyway, “The Chief” warned us at the time that installers are putting up Internet towers for some foreigners, and charging exorbitant prices. Now did that warning pop into my head when I gave Moises the go ahead on the 60 footer? Nope. I wanted my Broadband, high-speed connection no matter what.

I trusted Moises. He guaranteed me I could get my signal with a 60 foot tower, and I took him at his word. Here in the Philippines some things are just like back in the States. You make a judgment about a person, and decide if you can trust them. I looked inside Moise’s bloodshot eyes and took him at his word.

Well, the family is not happy about all this. They are all out in the front yard by my brother-in-law’s nipa hut talking in a frenzy in their local language. I ask the wife what’s going on even though I sensed I had figured it out. Sainted Patient Wife says the family believes I am paying too much for the tower. “Are they paying for it?” I asked my wife. She says my sister-in-law thinks I should get someone else to give me a bid on it. Probably a good idea, but Moises is the authorized installer for Smart, I’ve been waiting long enough to get the Internet here, and I will not wait any longer. Wife lets it go (for now) knowing I am getting irritated (I also got irritated in America so she recognizes my irritability here as well.)

A few days before the tower installation is due to happen, my wife informs me that Roy, our architect/ contractor could have put up the tower for 10,000 pesos. She wants to know if I had given any money to Moises yet. I said that I had not given Moises any money yet, but that I HAD given him my WORD that Moises was going to be the one to install the tower. If Roy installs Internet towers why was I not told this a couple of weeks of ago when he came by “The Compound” I ask Melinda, my Sainted Wife? (Let me please tell you, however, that I really like Roy. He is very smart, organized, and personable.) She says she doesn’t know why.

The crew of 5 comes in to install the tower. Moises tells me that he is only going to try to see if it works with a 50 section even though the tower the crew brings is 60 ft., broken down in 10 ft sections. He said it was too risky to go higher. I advised him that he was going to install a 60 ft tower as he promised if that is what it takes to get my signal. I also remind him that he told me before that he had climbed a 200 ft tower. He said he will go to 60 ft if there was no signal at 50 ft.

The tower goes up in 10 ft sections at a time. It is about 3- inch thick iron with supports welded on for climbing. It is supported by guide lines positioned throughout the front yard. A young man, not Moises, climbs the tower as the other workers get each section up to him with a rope. The guys get up to 50 ft, Moises hooks up the Ethernet cable to my computer, and gets no signal. Have to add that final 10 ft. section. The last section goes in, we have a 60 ft tower, and Moises (and I) are excited because we get a signal from the main tower, a very good signal. He goes to the Smart Bro website and reboots the computed as directed and then—-no signal, NOTHING!

He tries for another hour or so to  get the signal back. Still nothing. He then advises me he is an installer and not a technician; I had already figured that out for myself. He says he will be back tomorrow morning (hopefully with some help.)

Next morning Moises comes back with a friend of his who is a computer tech. The computer tech configures some LAN settings on my computer, gets the signal back, and I am online. I am overjoyed and thrilled to no end. So here I am staring at this monitor all day and typing. But I enjoy it. If you’re going to write a blog, what better place than the Philippines!

Last 5 posts by David DeWall

• Filipino Fashion: The Exposed Guy Belly - December 20th, 2009
• Top Five Shocks, Live in the Philippines - December 13th, 2009
• The Call - December 6th, 2009
• Taking the Pontoon to Iloilo - November 29th, 2009
• Filipino Time: First Encounter - November 15th, 2009

About the Author:  57 year old guy from a small town in central Illinois, after almost 30 years working for AT&T, decides to quit the rat race and move to a small rural province in the Philippines called Guimaras where my wife is from. My blog tries to chronicle in a somewhat humorous fashion (I hope) my daily adventures and escapades in the Philippines.