PAGE TWO

Not so. Early call (not so early...8 AM, but this time I am speaking to...praise the Lord...a guy in Texas. He will enter a trouble ticket with Covad and I am to call back in 4 hours for a status report. Cool. Five hours later, I call back...but Sean advises me that dude got busy and placed the order about two hours later...please call back in another hour or so..."Covad gets irritated if we bug them too soon." I explained that he hadn't seen irritated yet until he spent the past week or so with me.

Called back. Sean advises me they reset the card, reprovisioned the line (I love that word: I heard it so many times in both male and female sing-song voices beginning on the second that I think I will have it tattooed on my forehead...backwards...so's I can read it every time I look in the mirror). A tech visit was the next thing. My modem, dsl lights now blinking, reads dead.

Yesterday, Tech arrives. Neat guy. Looks like a smaller Wilford Brimley. He's a Mac guy to boot! Has 8 of them, all the way back to the 128. However, he has to use a PC to communicate with Covad online.

Pops the phone off the kitchen wall (I had moved the modem, attached a splitter, moved the Ti book...everything was ready for Covad guy).

Attached a filter to the split and BANG! All lights green. Hmmmmm.....the tech guy said don't filter the phone.

He logs on, enters a report, and all is well in the world.

Until he snaps the phone line into the jack. No service.

Ah! He says. You have a two-line phone! I always have. He jerry-riggs a short line, which results in the lines being switched. That won't work. Well, the problem with the line from the internal part of the phone to the jack is that the front pair are on line 1 and the back pair are on line 2 and no standard filters will filter the back pair so you are going to have to find a 2-line DSL filter.

He leaves, his job done, I go to Radio Shack and $18.00 later, the modem is synching. (Now, no one, including the senior dsl guys, ever asked about the possibility of a 2-line phone. More later.)

The new modem arrives, but I do not open it. I was told that the ENI Speedstream 5660 DSL modem was a fine piece of equipment and would work until my addressable modem would arrive. Too much to mess with. Back across the seas. This time, using OS X 10.3.5 partition, Isel and I began a three hour trek into the Twilight Zone. I Gave up, said farewell, and unpacked the new Zyxel modem. Neat looking device!

Now back on 8600. Can't get ACT light up and cannot connect. Go to Quick Start card. On the front side, which has a couple of pictures showing how to connect filter and stuff, in small print: "If you are using a two-line phone, you must purchase and use a dual-line microfilter to supplement your DSL kit."

Done that.

Carefully following all instructions, which require that after all synch lights are lit, you need to open your browser and enter the address "https://172.16.0.254/setup.html" and a service window from the modem, accessed over the Ethernet and TCP/IP Ethernet/DHCP setting, will allow you to enter you e-mail address, password, and connect. Went to bed at 1 AM, unconnected.

This morning, I call that distant land and young man say: Tun all off, then turn all on please. I do. Now, trash your AppleTalk preferences (Wait! Where does AppleTalk come in? Never used it before. No instructions to use it.) and your TCP/IP preferences. Open AppleTalk and set for Ethernet. Open TCP/IP and set for E-net and DHCP. Now open browser and enter JUST 172.16.0.254. How about what the instructions say? Forget them. I do. Up pops the window. Go to settings. Enter information. Click "Connect" and we are now going to my start-up page. Amaging! Five minutes!

More later.

BACK TO HOME NETWORKING

On Thursday, I called again, going through a few more of my friends (by now, I have spoken to 47% of the entire population) and I get really smart cookie. Logical. Takes long time searching trail. Finds two sets of files. Seems I do not have HN order, in spite of the fact that one of those windows has changed to say that I do. Entered on 2.2.2005.

Seems that when the cancel order was performed by woman I was on phone with, it takes three or four days for that to propagate (another word frequently used and may join "provisioned" on my forehead). So, when I went to enter new order the same day, though that order was accepted, someone had canceled it and even though the screens are supposed to be updated every two hours, the one showing I have active order is wrong. Please wait 5 days and reorder. On line.

Thank you. Razor cuts to my wrist. Feel so much better that dealing with Earthy.

Now, back to DSL.

I speak with America again, and the SUPER TECH runs a tracer. Hmmmm...... I am 17,000 feet from the switching station, paced in "safe" mode" and set for 384kbps.

Through the blinding tears, I run my own speed tests, plus those from what he says is the best speed test site ever because you can choose from servers across the country and even in the Bahamas. But I told him that I tried also to download large files from Adobe and from Apple, and the average speed was....84kbps!

Sorry, dude, that's all your gonna get.

Suddenly, the Earthlink page that for three days while I was making up my mind what to do, glowing reported I could receive everything except cable now advises DSL in not available at any speed over the telephone line!

I insisted on speaking with an American when I called billing issues and spoke with a lady in North Carolina and have a special direct line I am going to call Monday to terminate everything but Dial-up Light (at $9.95 a month, until I can advise the world about other mail addresses (though I WILL miss the superior Brightmail).

I called Comcast (after confirming my address could receive 4.0Mbps) and spoke with Tashika. It took a total of 10 minutes to establish a code, add to my account, and the self-install modem will be shipped on Monday (or I can go buy a modem from any electronics store - they do charge $3.00 a month for the modem, but I am under NO CONTRACT).

I get the first three months for $19.95, then $42.95 (as opposed to the $39.00 I have been paying), and, by the way, this includes your MP3 player. I don't really need that. Oh, but it's free...it is an iPOD, with an address to download a large number of free music until the end of March. Are you familiar with iPODS? What's the drive size? It's the small one...24MB...but it's your to keep. No charge.

Did I mention "hog heaven?"

All along, all those top level guys praised their cable when I mentioned I thought I was going to change. Not one of them was using Earthlink Cable or DSL.

Nuff said.

So, Doc, that's part of Big Picture. There are two million stories in the Big County. This has been one of them.

Oh...by the way. When you reboot, you have to turn AppleTalk off. Then turn it back on again. I know. It just took me a half-hour trying to reconnect after a freeze.

Lloyd

PS

I'm not spending any time editing this. But just to add:

Originally, the DSL guy (in 2000) put a filter right to the modem. Later, the HN tech (then American) said "Oh no!" Move the filter to the splitter and let the line run through the splitter.

The email regarding DSL information I received, after the cut-off order, stated that NO filter should be on the DSL line.

One of those special guys said that I was probably losing 20% speed by having that filter. So my 450-600Kbps would have jumped, and had I know all about this trip, I never would have changed. But as the DSL guy told me today, "With cable, you'll never look back!"
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