Internet Withdrawal

I probably should have been keeping up to date even while I’ve been offline; I certainly had the time, given how much assorted Star Trek I’ve watched in the last 10 days.

My internet setup has been extremely slow. I ordered Speakeasy DSL, because they have lots of great features, such as providing static IP addresses and not requiring PPPoE. Their end of the service has actually been pretty good thus far. The problem is that my initial order was almost three weeks ago. The phone company’s loop install wasn’t scheduled until August 1st (at which point I thought I’d have internet), and I received the DSL modem from Speakeasy as soon as I arrived in Boston.

After the loop install, I was informed that the “CLEC install would be scheduled on August 3rd”. I misinterpreted this as saying that the install was scheduled for the 3rd, when on the 3rd they informed me that my install had been scheduled on the 3rd for the 8th. So, here I sit, waiting for a guy from either Covad or the phone company (I’m not really sure who is responsible) to come and install my CLEC, whatever that is. I assume it somehow enables my apartment’s phone lines for data transmission. Unfortunately, I don’t have access to Wikipedia right now, so…

I realize I probably could have sought out a wireless hotspot somewhere. There don’t seem to be any in the commercial areas of Watertown that I’ve explored, but I could probably find one somewhere in Cambridge. Until my bike (along with my other stuff) arrived on Tuesday, I wasn’t terribly interested in going very far toting my laptop. Since then, I’ve been busy during the day at work, with my evenings dedicated to unpacking, cleaning, and cooking, not to mention purchasing assorted foodstuffs and household goods.

I could misuse my internet connection at work, and while I haven’t seen sign of a published technology policy anywhere, I’m not interested in discovering it the hard way.

Suffice it to say, I’ve been using a lot of my free night and weekend minutes to call my parental units and ask them to look stuff up for me.

Still waiting… le sigh.


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3 responses to “Internet Withdrawal”

  1. grumpy_sysadmin Avatar

    I assume you’ve looked it up already, but CLEC meant Covad there.

    The CLEC install was them activating/bridging to their rackspace a port at your local ILEC central office from the line that Verizon installed in your apartment.

  2. Nicolas Ward Avatar

    Apparently, Covad will also do the install inside the building, but I think I can handle checking my own wiring and so forth. Hopefully, anyway…

  3. tirerim Avatar

    If you’re looking for free wifi, try http://www.jiwire.com.

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