Relentless Inquiry

Not that you noticed I was gone, or only spasmo-sporadically updating things, as my ties to thee sputtered off and on, mostly off.

Well, foobar felgercarb snargleblarg. The good news is that we have IntarToobZ again.  The bad news is that can only get up to about 1.3 Mbps incoming, and 300ish outgoing.  So say we all, including the little speedy-test apps, who should know.

My suspicion that requesting an upgrade to Premium 6Mbps service was to blame was correct, but in an unexpected way.  The nice folks at AT&T had not actually messed up our connection (hush, o you cynics and scoffers).  Instead, trying to push a higher rate through the line had revealed a physical line issue that had not manifested at our previous SBCYahoo blazing 768Kbps level of connectivity.  (hush, I say)

A very pleasant fellow came out here today at about 9:30am and just left a few minutes ago, after 3 hours of outside line work.  He got us a fresh pair to what passes for the local infrastructure and did the extremely tedious phone work of contacting both departments needed to roll back the subscription from Premium to Elite (ooh, we’s ‘leet!).  At over 15k feet to the local Central Office, well, let’s say I was surprised in the first place when the automatic “do you qualify” checker came back and offered me the Premium option.  Apparently there’s a “weak 5Mbps” where the lines come into the local distribution point in our complex, and from there it’s all downhill as they’re farmed out to the various residences.

I think the extra measure of cheer for our visiting AT&T service guy might have come from contemplating the alternative.  How unpleasant his time would have been if the phone line hadn’t come into our place under the nice, dry carport!  He got to avoid the cold, nasty drizzle that’s been watering the garden all morning.  I offered to get him some hot coffee or tea, and he was surprised– isn’t anyone nice to service folks anymore?

So, welcome back, IntarWebZ, we salute thee.  Just not as speedily as we’d hoped.