Meanwhile, I've been experiencing what has been tenuously diagnosed as "intermittent connectivity issues" for more than a month now. In layman's terms: sometimes I can access the Internet just fine from my cable broadband connection at home – and sometimes I can't. The excruciating part is no one can seem to diagnose why I can't, let alone fix it. This is where we get into some of the downside of the flat world: if you can't tap in, you get left behind.
And at $45 per month, that ain't cheap. Multiple visits from the cable company, multiple tearings up of the furniture and wires in my cluttered apartment, multiple hours on the phone with Charter Communications' customer service reps (who, unless I'm very much mistaken, are stationed out of one of Bangalore, India's burgeoning call centers) have turned up empty. My investigation included speaking to people from Microsoft and Dell to ensure there was nothing wrong with my hardware. Just when I was ready to throw up my arms in abject fury, I learned from a new resident in my apartment complex Charter refused to sell him high-speed Internet service. Aha! It seems too many people are trying to tap the same overloaded pipes. Or at least that's my highly non-technical suspicion.
Perhaps salvation doesn't lie too far off, however. While it's tempting to up and move to Mountain View on the spot, WiFi nirvana may be heading my way. EarthLink is planning to create a low cost WiFi network in Pasadena, California.
Serenity now!
Article comments
1 - Mat Brewster
Not the same, but my in-laws are still on the old dial up method (the philistines) when we visit I go through addict like withdrawls. Sometimes I try to log on, but its just so excrutiatingly slow the veins in my neck start popping.
Sorry to hear about your own troubles.
2 - Eric Berlin
Yeah, it's really maddening when you can get online sometimes and not other times, never knowing when it will simply cut out for a few hours at a stretch. Of course, as you allude to, this is all predicated on an already existing online addiction!