It was about 11pm, just as I was settling into some dubbed Tom Berenger sequel, and my doorbell rang its deafening jingle sending me a foot straight up in the air off of the couch. I walked out onto my balcony and could see a shadowy figure, but without a moon out I couldn’t make out the face. He started speaking and I recognized him immediately by his voice as my next door neighbor.

“Were you sleeping,” he asked me.

“No, I was just watching a movie. What’s up?”

“I ordered ADSL and I’ve been trying for the last two days to get it to work, but it won’t do anything!”

At that point I felt I already knew why. Fastweb and Telecom, the two main ADSL providers in Italy, have a habit of signing up people for ADSL whether or not it’s in their area. Then “within 14 days” someone will come out to confirm if you’re actually within the coverage area or not. If not, they will refund your money — when they get around to it. I’d been waiting for two years for ADSL and I checked telecom’s site nearly once a week to see if coverage was in my area, and I was always disappointed. I hated to tell him that he went through all of that trouble and he was basically scammed, but I said that I’d be by the next evening to take a look just in case.

I went to his house the next day and found his computer pulled out from under the desk, wires, installation manuals, and CDs strung everywhere. I sat down at the computer as my neighbor hovered over me, cigarette in hand, and plugged in his shiny new ADSL modem that he had already taped to the top of the computer to keep it from falling off.

The little lights blinked into life, puttering like the heart of a dying man coming back to life, pulsing once, twice, then it held steady….

Fast internet had arrived in my little 4 house village after two years of waiting!!

I ran back home, dialed up, and went to Telecom’s site to sign up for the biggest baddest DSL package that they had. I typed my phone number into the box that checks if its available in your area, and after two years of, “We’re sorry, that service is not available in your area,” I was ready for some air guitar animated GIFs and flashing lights that announce, “WELCOME TO THE FUTURE!”

But my air guitars were replaced with, “We’re sorry, that service is not available in your area.”

...

That doesn’t make any sense. Fast internet is available at the house 20 meters from mine, and I discovered later that it’s also available for my landlords who live in the two floors below me! How can this be?

It turns out that Telecom came all the way out to Cortogno to hook up DSL, but only enabled it in one phone box, so one house might have it while another goes without.

Simona, the angel that she is, called Telecom several times getting varied responses, but in the end all said the same thing: “Yes, it’s perfectly normal to have DSL available for one house, but not the other.” Apparently the head of their deployment department was hired because he had the biggest black mustache in the area and a tendency to throw his fists in to the air and cackle maniacally.

In the end, my dear sweet landlady agreed to let me put DSL on her line and I’d just add the cost to my rent. Telecom is supposed to arrive within 10 days to hook it up, but with this being August and their technicians being more in vacation than usual, I’m not holding my breath.

But after two years, I’m sooooo close!