Tuesday, July 14, 2009

The dial up dilema

Several of you have commented on the headache that is our dial-up internet service and wondered why we don’t upgrade already. Here’s the deal: we live in the Bermuda Triangle of internet service. Seriously. There is a little area of land in Iowa County that falls just outside the service area of the local telephone companies. Guess where we live? Right smack in the middle of it. It’s dial-up or nothing, baby.

About once a year, our telephone company sends out a promotional flier claiming “High speed internet service NOW available in your area!” Apparently this is a typo. What they mean to say is, “High speed internet service NOT available in your area.”

I’ve called our ISP and questioned them about the situation. They are always very polite and assure me WELL OF COURSE you can get high speed and they’d be happy to sign me up right that very minute if I will just confirm my address and telephone number. So I do. And then there’s a very long pause, followed by some incoherent mumbling, followed by a meek apology and an offer to let me speak to their manager. No can do.

We could have a new satellite system installed and totally rewire our entire telephone, computer and television lines in the house and machine shed to get high speed access. All of this for an initial set up fee of $1,000 minimum, plus a monthly service contract, plus surcharges, plus this fee and that fee and a partridge in a pear tree.

We’ll keep the dial-up, thanks.

3 comments:

  1. shouldn't you be outside soaking up sunshine and not inside on the computer anyway???? high speed is HIGHLY over-rated... seriously (ok... you couldn't pry my computer out of my cold dead hands - you need to MOVE!!)

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  2. NO KIDDING!!! YIKES!!!
    Just go make a pot of De-Caf, that picture will be up by the time it's done!

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