So This is Life w/o DSL @ Home

I disconnected my land-line last Wednesday, marked it on my calendar 2/7/08 and fully expected to come home that evening to have no Internet connection. But surprise, surprise when I came home from work I still had a connection (even though the landline was clearly disconnected). I thought, damn, these guys are good. Verizon disconnected the landline and DSL Extreme got the “new dry-loop” connection up and running the same day. Amazing. Life was good indeed. Then after a productive three-day weekend, I came home after work on Tuesday and found that I had no Internet connection. Using my iPhone I was able to go to my account page with my ISP and discovered that my DSL was set to be activated on Wednesday so I chocked up the broken connection as just part of the process. Damn.

So I spent a couple hours Tuesday evening at the local Borders coffee shop downloading some podcasts and uploading my agenda for my Wednesday classes, using the T-Mobile hi-fi account I’d gotten when I bought my OLPC. I was skeptical about the account activation on Wednesday and sure enough, it was still down when I came home so I spent another evening at Borders trying to get work done. It was weird not being able to get the Internet at home, only having my iPhone to check my email. Because Borders closed at 10 PM I found myself at home, not wanting to read or put a movie on and just decided to go to sleep early. I know that most of my students don’t have Internet at home and can’t get to their MySpace accounts from school. So it has to be really frustrating for them. It was weird.

What was “interesting” Tuesday and Wednesday, became downright frustrating by Friday (Thursday I had no expectations because I knew that evening would be spend with family and I’d only want to get to bed by the time I got home). Knowing that I wasn’t going to have Internet I spent a very chilly hour downloading podcasts and email in front of the Borders before heading home. Argh. When I settled down to nap a little before heading out to see my friend Neva, I felt a cold coming on and I wasn’t too happy about that.

So Saturday morning I checked my lines to make sure that this “broken” Internet wasn’t my fault then called DSL Extreme. Oh yeah, before that I went back to my account page on their website and went through web-design hell because I couldn’t access their set-up info page. When I connected with their tech he warned me that I might have to get someone to do the final connection if Verizon had decided to cut my phone connection at the B-box on the street. That didn’t sound like any fun, and really made the little bit of money I was going to save over the next few months because I wasn’t paying for a landline seem like a dumb idea. We fiddled with setting, I created a new connection profile, he looked for my modem on his end. After a bit of this and that, service popped up. The tech theorized that my system needed a “refresh” because it was stuck on the previous connection settings that were taken down when the connection was “moved” (even though nothing was really “moved” except a software setting telling the switch that there was no subscriber on my previous phone number). Whatever. Long story short, getting my DSL back up after 5-day outage required a 30-minute call to tech support, some software switch-flipping and a cautious sense of relief when it all came back on. I’ll probably spend an evening at the coffee shop once a week or so to keep my head in a more social space… but I’m really glad to have Internet at home. [sigh]. jbb

Music/Podcast: this WEEK in MEDIA 80: Tu-na Al-bacore from the album “this WEEK in MEDIA (enhanced)” by Pixel Corps

Here’s my Twitter record of the frustration:

JBB’s Twitter Updates for 2008-02-13

• Figures that the 1st night that I have free 2 catch up I come home & my DSL is down… er, is now pending status 2 switch 2 dryloop mode ack #
• so this is life w/o working DSL @ home. Damn. Thank god 4 my iPhone. Need 2 leave 4 work early enuf 2 download podcasts in front of borders #

JBB’s Twitter Updates for 2008-02-14

• another evening @ the borders coffee shop. DSL is supposed to be activated tomorrow… we’ll see #
• happy valentines’ day, twitterland, nothing planned 4 2day ‘cept dinner w/ the fam (mom’s bd is 2day) girls r squealing, boy quiet, typical #

JBB’s Twitter Updates for 2008-02-15

• and… and, as of this AM my DSL @ home is still down, Internet @ work is mostly blocked & wonky, I’m 24-hours behind my podcast downloads #

JBB’s Twitter Updates for 2008-02-16

• contacted DSL Extreme & got service working 2 the apt. Yea! Now I noticed that 1 of my LCD monitors has brightness @ 100% & can’t lower it #

Featured image: No Internet by Marcelo Graciolli – Some Rights Reserved – https://www.flickr.com/photos/marcelograciolli/2807100863