Suffering Severe Withdrawal

from high speed internet that is...I am so f-ing frustrated with the internet service currently offered in my area by the local phone company. Since I moved out into the country, high speed is not available from them, just dial-up. And suddenly its 1995 again and I'm on my Packard Bell 486. I don't understand how they can charge me for this crappy dial-up. It takes forever just to download mail, and excrucitating if someone sends me a bunch of photos or some stupid foward junk. Then there's trying to open my browser and read the news...well, lets just say I play several games of solitaire waiting for it to download...I don't think it was any slower when I had my old computer and a 1200 kbps modem...now I log in at either 24, or 26.4...very sad indeed. Bidding on e-bay is disappointing...I lost out on a Christmas gift this morning because I couldn't load the page!!!

So I called them last week, whining about it. First I had tried looking into switching to AOL and drop the phone company's internet...but then AOL tells me they only have servers in two cities in NS and neither of them are in my calling area. Not the end of the world...I have unlimited long-distance after 6pm and all weekend, which is when I mostly use the internet...So I call the phone company to see if it covers modem/fax usage too, and it does...only one problem though...if I drop the internet plan with them, I lose my unlimited long-distance because that plan doesn't exist anymore...GREAT, just F-ING great. Now I am stuck with them...

So back to the whining part, well they set me up with a dialing string that should help things with my particular modem...some improvement, but it doesn't last. This morning it almost came to a halt entirely. So I called them up again. Missy gets me to read off EVERYTHING in my add/remove programs list...which took forever, and I didn't know WTF she needed that for...then I realized she is looking for spy ware...instead of just ASKING ME IF I HAD ANY ON THERE. Ok, so treat me like an idiot...whatever...she gets me to delete my internet connection and make a new one. And tells me to enter my login and password...hell, I don't know what it is now!!! I have changed my friggin phone number that often I don't remember what it was because it was tied to my old e-mail address, and one of my phone numbers, but which one, and when did it change? So she put me on hold when I told her that...10 minutes DRAG by and no one comes to the phone...so I hung up, tried what I thought was the login and password and finally got it. Still not working!!! Alright, call back, talk to some young guy who gets my anger...ok ma'am, can we look at the add/remove programs list....NO!!! So I explain to him what had been done already and could we MOVE ON PLEASE...my anxiety is apparently still high...so he says that's all he can suggest for me...so I proceed to inform him that there were other options last week, what's the problem...they told me last week to call back and they had lots of other things to try...so he asks if he can put me on hold...another blast - only if you're not going to dump me here, like missy already did...I heard a sigh...then hold please - click. He was only gone for 3 minutes (timed of course) and when he came back, lo and hold, he had something else for me to try in DOS. Which we did, I said thanks, he said "Thank-you for choosing Aliant" - CLICK! And it didn't work...so then I just left it...maybe it was a network problem, so I went for the stones and when I got back...its working, barely. So, I don't know...more prowling on the net for an internet provider...

sniff...I miss high-speed...