• Mood: hopeful
• Music: Digitally Imported -- Hard Trance

State of the Phoneline Address

I spoke with AT&T today and got some happy news. Since they're my local service provider I thought they might be able to offer me a package deal on DSL, and I was right. I can get 768k/128k service with dynamic IP for $39 a month, or 1.5M/128k service with dynamic IP for $49 a month. I'm opting for the slower speed right now because I need to save up cash. While ten dollars a month may not sound like a lot when my average sales total in the checkout line has been pushing the $150 mark ... well, every little bit helps. Think about it: that ten dollars I save every month amounts to a not-insignificant total of $120 every year. I need to keep my regular utilities low if I want to prevent a situation from occuring where my monthly utilities prevent me from making overpayments on the mortgages and revolving debt. Despite the 30 years of house payments that are hanging over my head I plan to stay as close to solvency as possible. Yes, the costs of the move have been considerable (and they're not done accruing yet) so I'm focusing on ways to keep my budget trim through the rest of the year so I can remain "above the waterline." I've become rather fond of not seeing outlandish credit card bills in my mailbox, and I want things to stay that way. I adore not owing people (aside from the mortgage lenders) large sums of money. In fact, after talking to my dad again last night, I'm starting to take a lot of pride in my financial standing. I am living the American dream of homeownership and I don't have piles of debt stacking up around me. I don't have creditors calling me demanding payments or threatening to garnish my wages. I've held my job with this company for six years and it pays the bills most admirably. I own my truck free and clear. All told... I'm really well situated for a fellow my age. Not many people in my age bracket can say these things. Not many people who are ten years older than me can say these things! I should be proud of myself, and dammit I'm going to take set aside a minute for gloating.

There, my minute of basking is over.

As I wrote on Saturday Speakeasy could not complete provisioning for my line because Covad wouldn't work with AT&T. I cancelled the order right then, but apparently the deprovisioning process is still running. Until that's complete I cannot place an order for my AT&T DSL, so all I can do at this point is wait. The technician I spoke with today suggested waiting 3 business days and trying back then -- so I will wait until Thursday morning and give it another shot to see if I can get the ball rolling. The sooner I can submit this new order the sooner I can, with luck, have connectivity at Z'ha'dum. Until then I'll be on dial-up service through work, which while tolerable is not my idea of a good time. Connectivity makes me happy. Come to think of it, work should pay to run some single-mode fiber into my house so that I can experiment with the ATM MAN model on a local basis. Fat pipes make me happy.

So, until Thursday I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that this all works out. If all goes well I won't have to resort to my fall-back plan, and that would make me happy as well because I very much want to avoid cable modem and the ridiculous cable company costs if at all possible. In the mean time, roho provided me a chuckle by reminding me about a Penny Arcade cartoon that may indeed accurately depict the debacle I am involved in trying to get DSL service.

No, no, no, no, no, no