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shirenomadIt actually took more effort than it should have to get to this point. You're all already probably aware that my area has been without high-speed far longer than a location in Silicon Valley has any business being. But around the beginning of the year we got news that our block was finally hooked up. So we signed up, got the equipment within a week, hooked everything up... nothing. Okay, they said it might be another week or so before our house was activated. We can wait.
Still nothing a week later. (Our neighbors, who signed up at about the same time, have been living the highspeed life for the same period.) Now we call tech support. They run us through the standard troubleshoot; no such luck. Our house should be receiving DSL signals and simply isn't. This does not bode well. I'm thinking in particular about how our dial-up is unusually slow, and how that problem seemed to be exclusive to our house... and how DSL runs over the same phone lines.
As it turns out, I was right. A couple visits by techies later, we determine that our house's phone lines are piggybacked off someone else's. This doesn't screw with regular phone conversation but interferes with a clean transmission of the level required for even 56K, much less DSL. So the techs eventually had to redirect the old wires, install new ones... basically it was one big hassle.
We'd left the DSL hub on in the meantime so the guys at SBC HQ could send test signals. Standard hub: four lights. Power, LAN, DSL, Activity. It had been running with a woeful two of those lit for a month. Yesterday I idly glance at it as I'm walking past.
"...Uh, Dad?"
"Yeah?"
"The DSL light is on."
And suddenly we dropped everything to harness that sweet, sweet high-speed. Hey, we're both geeks at heart. :D
Twas about time, though. We were seriously considering setting up a deal with our more fortunate neighbors to run a cable over the fence.
Still nothing a week later. (Our neighbors, who signed up at about the same time, have been living the highspeed life for the same period.) Now we call tech support. They run us through the standard troubleshoot; no such luck. Our house should be receiving DSL signals and simply isn't. This does not bode well. I'm thinking in particular about how our dial-up is unusually slow, and how that problem seemed to be exclusive to our house... and how DSL runs over the same phone lines.
As it turns out, I was right. A couple visits by techies later, we determine that our house's phone lines are piggybacked off someone else's. This doesn't screw with regular phone conversation but interferes with a clean transmission of the level required for even 56K, much less DSL. So the techs eventually had to redirect the old wires, install new ones... basically it was one big hassle.
We'd left the DSL hub on in the meantime so the guys at SBC HQ could send test signals. Standard hub: four lights. Power, LAN, DSL, Activity. It had been running with a woeful two of those lit for a month. Yesterday I idly glance at it as I'm walking past.
"...Uh, Dad?"
"Yeah?"
"The DSL light is on."
And suddenly we dropped everything to harness that sweet, sweet high-speed. Hey, we're both geeks at heart. :D
Twas about time, though. We were seriously considering setting up a deal with our more fortunate neighbors to run a cable over the fence.
