Suckerfish on the Side of Your Whale

The company that I work for provides wireless internet service, among other things. Our wireless service gets sent out from towers, and wireless customers have antennae that receive the signal and direct it to their router or computer. What's always amazed me is that a lot of our wireless customers refer to the service as "satellite", and insist on doing so, even if we repeatedly refer to it as wireless, and even if we gently correct them.

It's another example of people just not knowing the proper term, much like how lots of folks refer to their desktop as the "screen saver". One person I talked to today explained to me that no, it's satellite, she's seen the satellite over on Main Street (or whatever the street was called; I've forgotten). I didn't think it was worth pointing out that by definition a satellite is something that's in orbit, so I don't think she'd see it on Main Street.

This kind of confusion isn't really a big deal. It sometimes leads to frustrating confusion, but usually it just makes me shake my head that some people will resist learning the correct term, which can in turn make their own lives easier as the next time that they call me they'll be able to more clearly explain their issues and get a quicker resolution.

Labels: communication