Last year when we were in Cuenca for three months, we had multiple times when our Internet access disappeared — sometimes for a few hours and twice for multiple days.  Once we had control over our own condo this time, we chose to connect two different Internet providers.  We now have both ETAPA and PuntaNet.  If one goes down, we just switch to the other for the interim.  ETAPA is the faster connection, and therefore the one we use by default.

ETAPA waiting room to resolve technical issues

Two days ago ETAPA Internet went down.  We switched to the slower PuntaNet and kept working.  After two days, ETAPA was still offline though, so i figured I better talk to the company about it.

I have read several blogs where people had trouble with ETAPA. They all had one common element — they advised going to the office and not trying to handle the issue on the telephone.  Since my Spanish is not really up to any complex telephone conversation anyway, I decided to go to the ETAPA office and see what could be done to fix the problem.

I did a Google search for the ETAPA office, and found it was about 3 blocks from our condo — right next to Parque Calderon.  I walked over there, and had a conversation (in Spanish) trying to explain my problem. She finally told me I was in the wrong office, and had to go to another one about six more blocks away — on Tarque y Gran Columbia.

I therefore walked there, stopping along the way at a roasted chicken place to get a great chicken lunch (chicken, fries and coke for $4.00).  When I reached the ETAPA office, I was herded to an information desk.  Again, I tried in Spanish to explain my problem.  I was given a ticket number (140) and told to go sit in the waiting area.  Ticket 129 was being served, but with six agents, I figured it wouldn’t take too long.

Unfortunately, I had gotten there at 12:45, after taking my lunch break.  Promptly at 1:00, five of those six agents got up and left.  There was now only one agent handling the 13 people in the waiting room, and the ‘serving’ sign was only up to 130.  There was a lot of grumbling in the room when this happened, so it was clear I was not the only person dismayed to suddenly have a much longer wait.

At 2:00, one more agent returned, and she pressed the button to bring up #140 — me.  I sat down and first asked “habla English?”, figuring this would be a lot easier (for me) in English.  She said ‘no’, but talked to the other agent and told me to go there instead.  That agent said she spoke “a small English.”

It took 10 minutes to get her to understand that the Internet account was in Evelyn’s name and not mine.  She kept asking for my passport, and then saying there was no account.  I kept saying “es en nombre de mi esposa” (is in my wife’s name).  Finally I wrote down Evelyn’s full name and passport number and passed it to her.  That was the breakthrough I should have done first, because she then found the account.

She then said (in pretty good English) — “you have no Internet because you did not pay. You owe us for two months.”

Huh??  We had set it up for automatic payment via credit card. She could not understand my English at that point, so I finally slowed down, thought a bit, and said “quiero pago automáticamente con American Express” (I want to pay automatically with American Express).  I was rather proud when she clearly understood me — though she said I first had to pay the existing bill today by standing in another line…

ETAPA waiting line to pay outstanding bills

After waiting for more than an hour to be told I owed money, I now faced an even longer line to pay the outstanding bill ($100 for two months).  After a brief expression of dismay, she said that was my only choice if I want to get Internet activated again.  It seems that most Ecuadorian offices and banks model themselves after the California DMV…  ☺

After that was taken care of, I was told that Evelyn had to come back (I am not allowed to do it because the account is in her name) with a form filled out, along with a copy of her passport (or cedula, if we had that yet).  She gets to enjoy the office lines next week…

On the bright side, by the time I had returned home, our ETAPA Internet service was back on line.