Back in the Saddle. . . .

As most of your know (after listening to my complaints for so long), I have had major internet problems for the past few months. Although some of the details are fading from my mind, I figured I'd offer a small recap here for anyone who might make the same mistake I did.

Rule of Life number 1: Never buy a phone service from someone who had a former life as an Elvis impersonator.

Last year, I got roped into what looked like a good deal. Phone and cable with one provider and one bill. DIGITAL phone and cable. Having always wanted the Hallmark channel, I went for the lure of lower priced services and having what I'd craved. It did bother me some that the man I bought the service from had jumped from career to career and never seemed to stay with anything for long. But, always willing to help anyone impove, I thought I'd try it and see.

Rule of Life number 2: Never buy anything over the phone.

Yes, I did. To give him credit he did answer all my questions. (Wrong answers, but hey, he DID answer.) Would my dial up internet work with digital phone? Sure, sure. (No. NO!) Would the bill stay low? Sure, sure. ( NO! No!)

About a week after I signed up, the digital company came and installed everything. They did not however provide any one in the house with anything written. It took us a week to have someone come back to show us how to use the darned remote to watch the digital cable. That we disconnected after a month since we did not buy the DVR option and couldn't tape anything on our video recorders which had to be disconnected to hook up the digital box. We kept the digital phone because it was still cheaper. . . . until the first bill came in.

Heated conversations with the provider gave me the first glimmer of something wrong--they had no package deal THAT cheap. I'd been connned. Okay, get back to the guy who sold it--oh, sure, sure, they had that deal, he'd talk to his boss. I got the first bill lowered to the cutrate price but they were NOT happy.

It went downhill from there. After a couple of months of wondering WHY my internet kept disconnecting every few minutes (and doing everything under creation to FIX my PC), I came to a conclusion. Could it be the digital phone does not work with a dial up provider? Simple question but complex answer. No one seemed to know the RIGHT one. I finally got in touch with someone at Time Warner who said I should have read the disclaimer that dial up and digital do NOT mix. She kindly offered to read it to me over the digital phone which I planned to yank out of the wall at the first opportunity. I declined her offer.

They did send out a tech man to see if he could figure out the problem. Oh, gee, the digital modem was fried. They replaced it. It didn't fix my internet. Called them out again. After calling four of his supervisors, the tech man admitted the awful truth--they could not guarantee that their digital phone would work with dial up and didn't I want the nice, high speed internet?
NO!!

Then began the search to find another phone company that would give me back my dial up and take out the digital. Got another jolt when they said the digital company had to RELEASE the phone number I've had since 1976. Lose my phone number? NO NO NO! In the end, after several agonizing months of sheer frustration, I have my phone number, my MSN and I'm back in the saddle again!

Some people will think it's nutty to want to keep my MSN and dial up. Well, that's what I wanted. Didn't want to have to change my email addresss for the umpteenth time, nor lose the dial up. I LIKE DIAL UP!! Having used road runner (the fast connection at the library), I don't find my internet access that slow at all. It's bad on downloading pictures, true, but not totally horrible.

And so, I'm back. The only time the internet disconnects is if someone calls on the phone----but, there's an easy solution for that. I unplug the phone!