fine whine

For a company that deals in communications, AT&T doesn't seem too interested in hooking me up.

Sure, sure I've got my local service, stripped down to its barest minimum (I don't even have CallerID anymore), but that's about the extent of what AT&T can offer me, except for more long distance calling plans than I could ever want or need.

I'm not interested in connecting myself beyond what I have now; I'm interested in what they should be able to do for my computer.

Every so often (i.e. twice a week) lately I've been receiving a flyer for what seems to be a good deal for DSL, under fifteen bucks a month. This sounds like a good deal to me, and I know that even the slowest DSL would be a ten or hundredfold improvement over the crappy dialup I've got now.

Yes, I still use a modem to dial into my internet service.

Some 80% (or more) of American households have broadband access, and I don't. I'm not holding out on principle, I just can't get reasonably priced highspeed internet, and I'm not willing to pay too much.

'Too much' being my only options: Cable from Time Warner, by way of the reseller Insight who, nearest I can tell, can count only the increased price as added-value. Time Warner doesn't service my neighborhood directly. Comcast doesn't know I exist, nor do any of the other smaller cable providers, except WOW! which wants me to give them three dollars a day before taxes, though for that I'd get cable TV and local phone service.

Surprisingly, ISDN is available, but not at the price a decades-old technology should cost now. I'd jump on the satellite internet bandwagon before I'd get my house wired with ISDN.

But those aren't the offers AT&T enticingly dangles in front of me twice a week. They're ostensibly offering me a DSL connection for less than I pay for my local phone service.

Except for one thing: it's not available in my neighborhood.

One of these days I intend to map out exactly the blacked out area outside the reach of their connection offices. Since they own the wires (or tubes, as some would say), and they haven't wired close enough to me, I can't get connected.

For the last three years I've been checking to see if they build an office close enough to me to finally cast off the shackles of bad dialup. For three years they've given me a runaround about not being able to share their expansion plans, and for three years they haven't expanded to include my neighborhood.

I don't live in the boonies, or anything like that. My house is well within the outerbelt of the city, and less than 15 miles from downtown. I've tried to explain this to the patient, but useless, people at AT&T to no avail.

Recently though I've gotten more fed up. I called them back and gave them an earful about constantly getting these stupid offers in the mail for a service they cannot provide me. I berated them for knowing where I live, what they can offer me, and sending me junk mail offers that I couldn't use if I tried.

They've got my address in a database, to know that I can't get DSL. Why don't they link that database to the junk mail system?

Could they really be so stupid as to not think that anybody in the city is outside their tentacled reach? Or do they just not care?

I told the specialist on the phone that I wanted to save them postage, but really, I just don't want to see the offers. She said I'd be removed from the mailing list, though this really does little to allay my annoyance.

This doesn't even count as a tiny victory. There's still nothing I can do to get connected - nobody in my neighborhood is sharing their overpriced access (I only know of one person with broadband, and I'd feel bad about saturating her connection with my gaming and downloads) and no free wireless is nearby. What does it take, in this day and age, to get a reasonable connection?

Other than suggesting their own overpriced dialup, AT&T gave me only one other option*: get everybody in my neighborhood to 'order' this access we can't get, to somehow show them that there is, in fact, an interest.

Too bad I need everybody's phone number to put in orders, and that's the one thing that I can't seem to find in the public records. What am I supposed to do, walk up to their doors and ask them in person? I can't even call them.

* They didn't suggest that I move, but I suppose that would be an option except that they really, really dropped the ball on even my stripped down local service the last time I moved.