dealing with utilities...................

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So -- on Monday I spent 45 minutes on the phone with our landline and DSL provider, talking about the upgrade in internet service that we are being required to take.  The salesman answered my many questions about switching to faster internet service, and about the landline.

I was offered a good deal on an "internet and landline" deal, and I agreed to take that deal. 

For now, we'll keep the landline.

I tried really hard to get the salesman to give me the bottom line -- including mandatory equipment rentals and all.  We'll see -- I won't believe what I was told until I see the bill..........

(You won't be surprised to know that he tried to sell me TV service, too.  But while the price he offered for "internet and landline" was enticing, the price for TV was more than we are currently paying another provider.  Odd.  I asked a lot of questions about how providing TV service works, installation/equipment-wise, too, but he never came down on the price, so I declined to switch the TV.)

I agreed to an appointment for yesterday to get the installation of the new service done.

Then, a couple of hours later (Monday around noon), our internet service was cut off.

I spent another 45 minutes on the phone getting it turned back on.  (Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr................)



Yesterday the installer came to hook us up to the new service.

Essentially everything the salesman told me about the installation process was a lie.  He told me the installer would basically drop a new modem/router on us, and that would be it.

And yet.

We needed a new box on the outside of the house, and the old one wasn't grounded, which entailed some dithering about what to do, because he couldn't put a spike in the earth to ground it to, without calling MissDig, and I didn't want him grounding it to the pipes inside the house.  !!!  Luckily I remembered there is a spike already, not too far from the box on the outside of the house.  (That old spike is from a previous cable tv installation, I think.)

But the installer didn't have enough ground wire, so he had to go get some.

Then he had to drill a new hole into the house, to accommodate the new kind of cable into the house from the box.

Which entailed more dithering about where to put *that* -- who wants a hole in their wall, anyway, and then should it be in the living room, or upstairs, in a bedroom?

If I'd had proper info from the salesman, I could have made these decisions before the installer came................  Not to mention could have organized MissDig..............

But, eventually, everything got done, and both of the computers we care the most about are connected to the net.  Yay.

It took seven (7!) hours of my time to get all of this done.  So far.  It won't be Over until I've seen the bill and it says what I was told it would say.

No wonder I was putting this off.  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I thought it would be annoying to deal with, and, guess what?  Much worse than I'd imagined.

Fingers crossed that everything continues to work, and that the price turns out to be what I was told it would be.


Let me just say that I can't figure out this whole wiring business.  The installer told me that there was very little fiber in Ann Arbor.  It's all copper.  So what comes to your house is copper, and that it is copper between your house and some box, somewhere, from which they connect you to the wider world.  I *think* he said that beyond that box, it's fiber.  But I wouldn't swear to it.  As I think about it, it seems unlikely............

I can't figure out how they can make faster speed on the same old wires...................

The installer actually told me there was NO fiber in Ann Arbor, but I informed him that the University has it, right to the offices, not just to the buildings.................



In any case.  I SURELY wishing we could spend more money on upgrading our infrastructure, and less on stealth bombers.  Or any other kind of bombers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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