Turns out FreddieMac doesn’t always play well with my other digital children.

I got Freddie back in October and things had been going pretty well…except in the area of wireless. When I’m not traveling or visiting friends and family, Freddie stays on the desk, where she’s been turning wireless networking into Russian roulette.

My Verizon FIOS connection uses an Actiontec wireless router, and there were times that Freddie refused to talk to it. She never had any problem with Ethernet, but periodically the wireless connection would just die. I’d watch the connection waver, and then go out of existence as far as Freddie was concerned.

It would stay off for up to an hour, and nothing I could do, from rebooting the system to completely erasing all network connections, seemed to work. So I called Apple.

And completely stymied them for about 15 minutes. Janet-the-Apple-tech went through the settings, tested connections, discovered that other wireless computers on my network were working perfectly well. Not once during the call did FreddieMac so much as sniff at the wireless network. Janet sighed, then asked if there was a nearby Apple Store so I could drop Freddie off for a checkup? (drat)

Then, just as she was about to write out a trouble ticket for me, she asked what lay between Freddie and the Actiontec. “Uhm, my cell phone, some speakers, the Windows monitor, the Windows server, the Windows desktop, a Linux server, the wireless keyboard and mouse, my cordless headset phone, a lamp, a scanner, backup storage drives, digitizing tablet….”

“Hold it. Did you say cordless phone? Is that what you’re talking on now? Do me a favor– switch phones and turn it off for a sec, OK?” The minute I hung up the cordless phone, Freddie found the network and everything was fine.

I mostly use my mobile and just keep the landline for, I dunno, nostalgia or a backup or something, maybe doing 2-3 calls per day. Thinking back…yeah…Freddie was dropping the network maybe 2-3 times per day. So she’s been doing the digital equivalent of taking her ball and going home whenever she encounters a rival. This means that unless I can figure out how to change frequencies for at least one of these devices, it’s Freddie or the phone.

Hmmmm…anybody want a cordless headset phone?