July 22, 2010
My brother John and his wife Diane eventually grew tired of waiting on photos to download on their computer after years of using a dial-up Internet access system.
When they had enough of the interminable waiting, they decided to join the modern age and get broadband.
Have you heard the "knock-knock" joke about dial-up Internet service?
A: Knock Knock
B: Who's there?
A: Waiter.
B: Waiter who?
A: Waiter week while I download a picture!
That was their life. They could not get web pages to load either, especially if there were a lot of graphics involved. Some days, connecting to the Internet required long waits as well.
Using the Internet was no fun any more.
John jokingly told me that his slow dial-up Internet access was exactly how comedian Dave Barry once described dial-up:
"An entire new continent can emerge from the ocean in the time it takes for a Web page to show up on your screen. Contrary to what you may have heard, the Internet does not operate at the speed of light; it operates at the speed of the DMV."
Since John and Diane live in the mountains in a fairly remote area, they drove to a nearby city to pick up their new modem. That was chiefly because UPS or FedEx can't find them. Apparently, neither can their Internet provider. Read on.
The instruction sheet that came with the modem listed a few easy steps to installation. The steps were easy, true, he said, until they reached Step #8.
When they reached Step #8, they realized they did not have an Ethernet port on their computer. The instructions indicated that if that was the case they must call the technical center for the Internet provider.
John initiated the call at 8:15 a.m. and began speaking with "Bob", who lived in the Phillippines. After talking to Bob for 3 hours and 46 minutes, John chose the easier route of using the USB port. He was told to follow simple procedures and not use the yellow cable, whatever that meant. He never found out.
John asked, just to be safe and certain, "Will we be able to keep our old email address and will all of the names in our address book be saved?" Bob said no worries.
Three hours and 46 minutes later, John gave up without being able to salvage his address book, and he was not sure if he had a new email address or not.
Bob told him a service technician would come to the house to help, but they must have a person of legal age on site so the tech could switch the input coming into the box on the house.
The appointment was set for a Monday. John and Diane stayed home all day. No call. No tech.
John called the company the next day and was told that, wonder of wonders, the tech simply needed to make a small adjustment in the main box located a few miles down the road. It had already been done.
John said he never understood much of the conversation with Bob the previous day, and he has no idea how Internet broadband service eventually entered their house.
But it did, even though no service techs or delivery services, for that matter, can find them.
One can only marvel and ask, "Isn't technology grand?"
