After 8 days without WIFI, my mood was not improved by the grandly titled ‘PRESIDENT’ of the urbanisation constantly telling me it was a ‘user problem’, and if he told me to ‘power down and back up’ once, he told me 10 times, feigning surprise each time I told him that this would not bring my internet back to life.
I may be blonde, but trust me, I’m definitely not stupid. I know that to have internet access on my computer, I have to have a Wifi service to my router.
But the lights were not on, and no Wifi was at home.
Eventually just as all hope was lost, a man appeared at my gate. ‘Are you?’ I asked, ‘I am’ he replied. If we had known each other better I would have kissed him right there, right then, but it seemed entirely inappropriate, we were strangers after all, and I didn’t want to risk him running away.
And of course, it wasn’t a ‘user’ problem. Water had crept into my Wifi cable, and whilst there was a strong signal in the utility box at the gate, it had drowned before it reached the router.
After the trauma of having no Wifi for such a long time, I wanted to minimise the danger of it happening again. Clearly, rain was getting into the box somehow, so we took a look at the positioning of the cable to see if anything needed to be gently re-sited for damage limitation purposes.
So as the lovely engineer was working his magic in the utility supply box, I took a look as well, and even with minimal knowledge of such things, it all looked a bit too shabby and very insecure to my untrained eye.
Firstly, Mr Engineer was able to open the box simply by using his personal key ring to lever it open. No need for any specialized tools. So if he can do it, then anyone can.
Once inside the box, the incoming phone cable is completely obvious, and a small connector takes the service from the box, through to your telephone and WiFI router indoors. Even a small child could remove this connector in seconds.
A small child however, would probably only be interested in connecting it to his Fisher Price pull along phone, which wouldn’t cause you too much of a problem.
THE PHONE AND WIFI CABLE IS AT THE BOTTOM LEFT HAND CORNER OF THE PICTURE
On the other hand, as unlikely it seems, Mr Engineer pointed out to me how easy it would be for an opportunist simply to open ANY utilities box, and connect a phone to YOUR service and call their ‘brother’ in any war torn country. 
Likewise, just as Mr Engineer did (when was testing my own service), anyone could connect a lap top to YOUR Wifi service, to rally some troops anywhere in the world. And it did indeed seem far too easy, and the whole utility box, right outside my gate, outside everybody’s gate, suddenly looked very vulnerable.
I certainly wouldn’t think twice if I saw a man, with a ‘tool box’, accessing a utility box, I’d simply assume he was another Mr Engineer.
And so would you.
Since then, whilst walking my dog around the urbanisation where I live, I’d say that only 25% of the boxes I’ve passed have any additional security on them, like a padlock, or a bolt.
And after seeing, and hearing first hand inside information of just how vulnerable the utility box is, maybe it is worthwhile adding just a bit of extra security as a deterrent.
Better safe than sorry. 
Of course, I realize the likelihood of ‘Abdul’ from Pakistan rocking up on the Costa’s to make a few phone calls home, or to access his Facebook page at your front gate is a bit remote.
BUT, then, did we ever imagine there would be a man on a beach in Tunisia with a loaded gun.
Apart from anything else, all be a bit too late when your phone bill comes in and ‘someone’ has racked up hundreds of euros worth of calls to some far off land from your phone line in Spain while you were obliviously eating your tea in Tooting.
Please come and read more about my adventures now that I'm back in Spain ~ again!
www.hellosixty.com