July 01, 2005 :: Living in the hood sucks, sometimes

This post is purely a rant.

My DSL has been acting up for the last couple of days, ever since I had unplug it to rearrange some furniture. It's been very flaky, going up and down more than a cheap K street hooker. I have been on the phone with my DSL provider's tech support (Speakeasy, not Verizon, thank God) quite a bit recently. They're wonderful, but this one is probably out of their control. They got the line provider (Covad) to run a mechanized loop test on the circuit from my house to the central office, and found out that I'm even farther from the CO than I thought... 20300 feet, or damn near four miles. At that distance, it is a miracle that the DSL works at all. It doesn't even make sense that I live in the city and I'm so far away. That's just proof that the local telco (Verizon, again) doesn't give a shit about my neighborhood or the people (mostly black, and older, retirement age even) in it. I'd already downgraded my account speed to 768/128 a while ago in the interest of stability, and it was working... but now it's being crazy again. The provider said essentially that there's not much they can do for me at that distance, except put me in "safe mode", which means slowing my speed to 480/128. I had already been spoiled by the initial 1500/384 speed, but now this is ridiculous. They said it would be grounds for me to get out of my contract, if I wanted to, and to get another provider.

Now, I know some of you local people are thinking "why don't you just get Verizon DSL?" Plain and simple, they suck. Their policies suck, their customer service sucks, their tech support sucks. And that wouldn't move me any closer to the CO. In fact, I don't think Verizon would even allow me to order ADSL at this distance, so they'd probably make me order some crappy IDSL that costs $99 a month and gives 128/128 speed.

Some of the smarter people are probably thinking "well, why don't you get cable internet?" They finally started offering it in my neighborhood last year. Again, the neighborhood. The cable plant here is 25 years old, and it was probably a chore to upgrade it to support a service they thought (rightly or wrongly) that my neighbors wouldn't be interested in. So I could get cable internet... but then there are the technical issues (shared backbone, static IP), and the cost issue. Presently, I *ahem don't pay for cable tv. I don't watch enough tv to justify the cost, I figure. But if they come install internet, I'd probably have to start paying for cable tv too. So that's at least $100 a month there, all for the sake of internet access. Not a fabulous deal. At those prices, it's almost worth it to get Verizon Wireless Broadband, which should work anywhere in the city. Of course, the equipment for that is made for laptops, and I have two desktops at home. Oh well.

Suffice it to say that none of this would be a problem if I did not live in the hood. Proof positive of the institutional neglect of black neighorboods. Hell, in some of the tonier NW neighborhoods, I could probably leech an unprotected WiFi signal from an unsuspecting neighbor. Oh well.

posted by Rainmayun at 2:24 PM -