Make:

$10/month for all your traffic scrutinized, all your IP endpoint logged, all you packets searched for "illegal content" all at 384 Kbps or less.

No thanks.

You might as well turn yourself in to the thought police now.

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"all at 384 Kbps or less."

No, it's 768, and for those of us who are clean little sheeple, we'll live with the unlikely (FCC won't support that policy, I hope!) invasion of privacy;
it's still better than dialup for some of us.

----real life,my life today:

I wrote to another blog's commentary yesterday, with some vitriol against AT&T. I still feel that way (toward AT&T).

I've been on dialup since 1995. Have Comcast cable here in this house, but I won't buy Comcast's broadband on reason of principle: that firm, here in Miami, is utterly unresponsive to service requests. After hurricanes two seasons ago, the drop from pole to the house was down for two months. Dozens of service appointment promises were made, broken, excused by "we have no record of any service order", or "our records show no problem", or "we will be out tomorrow before five", or whatever. Two months. And that was just for that trouble. Any other service request (several over the years) have been similarly bungled. SO-- no Comcast cable broadband in my home.

That leaves one other option: AT&T. I resisted going their route before the $10 offer popped up, because the best =potential speed= they can offer in this neighborhood, is only 1.5mips.

But yesterday, just 24hours ago, I did the deed, found the Secret Offer page, and ordered the free modem and $10/mo service (I'm now obligated for one year).

THIS morning, an hour ago, my phone line went dead.

Contrast what follows with my Comcast gripes up above:

-Dialed 611, "Hello, how can I help you" said a Ms. Harris. "My phone is dead, no dial tone. "I'm so sorry about that, sir. Let me make a quick line check from here." (minute later) "Yes sir, the outside line is the problem, it's not inside your home. We will have it fixed today before 7PM."

But by the time she said that, I had gathered a suspicion! There's a big junction box down the street in front of my neighbor's property. Often the BellSouth (now ATT) guys work there on the line pairs.

I jogged out of my house and took a gander: Sure enough, an ATT panel van and one technician were at the junction box. I thought: Damn fool has cut off my service while bungling up some job or other. So I walked down and challenged him (not nasty though).
"Say, good morning. My phone just went dead."

The technician replied "Do you live at xxxx Maple Street?"
"Yes, that's me."
"I'm installing your DSL line right now."

I beamed. Good old POTS telephone service yet lives!

---more:

Young Mr. XXXXX, the friendly technician, explained and answered the questions that ATT will not at present answer by phone or from the webpage:

Firstly: I have two computers in the house.
Sleazebag AT&T's Secret Offer deal does not allow for the order of a wireless gateway or router, by which to feed two computers. I thought, I will only be able to feed my computer, and old dad's computer would have to remain on dialup.

The tech informed me that he is -pretty sure- we can use a gateway here at no extra cost above the $10 term agreement. He volunteered, "I will call you at the end of the day with an answer, or you can call me anytime."

I gave the guy a grateful handshake. "Thanks! I'll tell the company how helpful you were."

"That's appreciated, but no, don't tell them what I told you about the term service. I'm not supposed to tell customers more than the company wants to tell them." (I paraphrased that last line. The technician is not a native English speaker, but it was quite clear that he's HAPPY to see a new crop of happy customers.

"Has anyone else besides me ordered the $10 service in the past few days?"

"Yes! Three in this neighborhood!"

"Well, it's the way for me to go, since all we can get here is 1.5mips at most."

"That's true, but the company is thinking of installing a repeater nearby soon and then the potential for speed will be greater."
(again, paraphrased because his English is broken).

The technicians are the backbone of any service-oriented company.
They are people like us, just trying to make a living, and most of the BellSouth workers I've met are competent and good-natured.
And so, I am happy to have this service, and have them, and
TO HELL with the Comcast that monopolizes Miami.

I'll report again later on when the DSL is working, and relate just how much of the nominal 768 speed is actually obtainable. Anything has to be better than what at present comes via dialup.

Cheers. Thank you BellSouth technician, Mr. XXXXX. I'm sorry you work under the policy mismanagement of Gigantic Turds.

Parting shot: "Mr. XXXXX, should I call 611 and cancel the repair order just made?"

He laughed, and said in his new-English way, which I put to more-regular English:

"Please, no, not necessary to cancel the repair order. It's a funny joke because the "problem" was only me with the wires off the terminals.
So I will tell them and I will have fun telling them this!"

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