Then, on D(elivery)-Day, Oct. 11, the rep said someone mistakenly canceled our first order, and courtesy of Hurricane Jeanne Dec. 12 was our new service date – four months after our initial order. When we placed our cable modem order this week with Adelphia, they apologized that, because of the hurricanes, they were backed up – it would take them three days to get to me. Hello cable, goodbye DSL hell.
Four years ago this month, I was on the bleeding edge of DSL early adopters. I remained on the bleeding edge so long that the pain induced me to write about the DSL hell that I encountered. Apparently any penance I did in the interim was not enough to spare me this time – as I sit once again in a “DSL-free” household.
It has been clear that my experience was not unique. When I reread that column on Network World Fusion the other day, I saw that similarly frustrated users have been adding their comments even as recently as last month. I can tell you that there are not many topic columns that still have any life left in them four years after publication.
Given that interest, I thought it would be appropriate to add a follow-up given that once again I find myself unable to bring DSL online at Chez Tolly in South Florida.
Last time, it was Verizon; this time BellSouth is the culprit. And the problems are not at all like the ones I encountered four years ago.
You’ve got to give the carriers credit – they seem to work day and night trying to figure out new ways of making things difficult and frustrating for the lowly customer.
At the outset, it looked like a breeze. The self-install package arrived promptly and an activation date was set for some two weeks out.
You could see they spent a lot of money on making the kit actually usable by human beings. They color-coded the cables so you wouldn’t have to call your local geek to help figure out RJ-45 from RJ-11 or USB. The installation CD contains a “wizard” rather than just a “guaranteed to hit a dead end” set-up program.
In their zeal to make life even easier, they set your initial BellSouth password to the last seven digits of your phone number. Nice, but potentially a security hazard as the userID format makes it very easy to guess.
Because I haven’t been able to get the service, I can’t say whether they recommend or force a password change the first time on. They’d better.
While I’m not sure the real reason that I don’t have DSL service some two months after I ordered it, the really good excuse is “the hurricanes.”
When Frances hit, BellSouth, understandably, said that service would be delayed a bit (although our area was hit with only minimal telephone outages.) The rep told my wife that new orders were getting better delivery dates so the new order was placed alongside the old.
Then, on D(elivery)-Day, Oct. 11, the rep said someone mistakenly canceled our first order, and courtesy of Hurricane Jeanne Dec. 12 was our new service date – four months after our initial order.
When we placed our cable modem order this week with Adelphia, they apologized that, because of the hurricanes, they were backed up – it would take them three days to get to me. Hello cable, goodbye DSL hell.
Tolly is president of The Tolly Group, a strategic consulting and independent testing company in Boca Raton, Fla. He can be reached at ktolly@tolly.com.
