The sock! The sock has been won!
Back near the beginning of August, I made the starting discovery that while ADSL still wasn’t available for me personally, it’s available for my landlords downstairs. You see, in Telecom Italia logic, it’s completely normal to say that one person living on the bottom two floors of a house are within the DSL area of service while completely excluding the guy living on the top floor — the guy who works all day and night on the internet. Finally, after over two years, I was closer than ever.
I talked to my landlady and she was happy to have ADSL put on her line and let me use it (best landlady ever). We ordered it around August 4th with the promise that someone would arrive within 10 days with a modem, but with ferragosto the next week, I figured it might take a few weeks.
Ten days turned into a month and I still hadn’t heard anything, so Simona called Telecom again to ask what was going on. The lady at the other end, who didn’t even know was ADSL is or that Telecom even offered it, kindly informed us that the DSL service order had been suspended, without cause or reason. She was able to get the service order resubmitted and told us to wait up to 25 days.
I waited up until yesterday, but I had a feeling that Telecom had done something to suspend the order again and if I waited until the 25th, I’d have to wait another month before getting ADSL. Simona offered to call again, and when she did, the operator told her that I already have ADSL. Nobody showed up because I had opted out of a modem.
I plugged my ADSL modem into the wall and waited for a sign of life. This is the ADSL modem that Telecom had sent me two years prior when they thought that I could get ADSL, but apparently forgot about it because I don’t pay for it and they don’t ask about it. The ADSL light sputtered to life, blinking a steady beat telling me that it was trying to connect to the network. Suddenly, the light was solid. It was connected. Finally, after two years, I have ADSL!
The winner of the ADSL pool and proud recipient of the magical sock of power is SarahG, who beat me by two days! Unfortunately the sock has apparently transported itself back into the future or another dimension because I cannot locate it any longer. Probably for the best.
Comments (8)
Shame, I had a spare sock to match the two up
Glad to hear you finally got your ADSL. Welcome (back?) to the world of whoooosh!
Does this mean you’ll be updating your blog now?
SarahG: Unfortunately whooooosh is limited to 800kbps (supposed to be 2mbps), but what a difference from dialup.
Sean: Hopefully, but work has been tying me up. By the way, any thoughts on when you’ll have time to check out the project?
By the way, the ‘subscribe’ icon at the top of the page doesn’t come up for me. (http://www.brianburton.org/layout/rss.png is missing?)
It would be nice if comments had visible timestamps.
A moment of silence for the sock, ‘twas a good sock, a dear sock, a beloved sock..Amen
umm.. I got your timestamp right here!??
Peace out! (btw new Kanye album is off the heezie..)
Congratulations on getting the ADSL going at long last!!!
Progress when it happens in Italy is extra sweet cos you have to fight so damn hard for it.
Mind you, I have a friend in the depths of Tipperary who is trying to get internet right now and Eircom is still struggling to find an exchange box near enough to her home to give her a landline…
Sean: Thanks, I’ve uploaded a new one.
Kid: I’m very meh about the new album. Not nearly as good as the last one.
Robert: I feel your friend’s pain. I didn’t even have a phone line until one of the other people here offered to give up their own.
Did you get a chance to listen to the “new’‘ Wilco album (I think it came out like 2 months ago or less..) It’s pretty good, 4 out of 5 dentists recommend it, ..er.. and 1 out of 1 brother-in-laws too!! peace! (one day I’ll figure out how to set up a torrent…)