Thursday, January 21, 2010

Installment Two: Saga of the Search for Speedy Internet

(Go back and read Introduction and One first. Seriously.)

The saga of my quest for better than dialup continues....and I swear I'm not making any of this up.

Remember how we left off with the gal going to phone me back to see which service I'd like, the portable internet or rural internet? Guess what?

She never called back.

So the next day I called back. Of course it was an entirely new person and I went through the spiel of where I was at, saying I wanted to go with the rural modem. He started to talk me into portable, saying it was better: I could take it wherever I went, and it was faster than rural.

I paraphrase, but essentially express that frankly I could care less about taking it with me, it's here that I need the damned thing to work. And, well, how fast is rural anyway?

He says 2mbps.

I think, "Buddy, that's fast--I'm on DIALUP. Get it?!?!"

But he says to try the modem and he goes away to activate it. LOUD classical music blares into my ear. He comes back and says okay, plug it in now. He's so full of anticipation I can feel it through the phone. "What's it doing now?" he asks.

"The same endless tracking back and forth," I reply.

Then he asks me to plug in my computer. I say, "Well, I already packed all those cords up again but okay, I'll go unfurl everything and plug it into my computer."

Then he says, "What's it doing now?"

The same thing: Endlessly. Tracking. Back and forth.

So he says to try the northwest corner of my house.

"I already did that," I say. "But I'll do it again if it'll make you feel better." Okay, so I didn't actually speak that last sentence. I sure as hell thought it. So there I am trying the same damn rooms in my house again. "Are you supposed to wait while I do this?" I ask.

"Sort of," he says.

So there's no change in the endlessly tracking green lights after two locales. He says to try all the rooms in my house and he'll call back in a bit.

Um, yeah, sure. Whatever. So I hang up politely. I try the other couple rooms again just for the helluvit and to be a good sport and of course there's no difference.

Does he call back?

Nope.

So I remained,
a techno peasant.

[Go to Installment Three]

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