I am not sure how related this is to mobile open source, but it is pissing me off, so I would like to write about it (that's the beauty of having a blog, I guess). This blog is getting quite popular (I do not know why, but the stats are astonishing), therefore it might help solving my problem :-)
Few years ago, I moved from Silicon Valley back to Italy. In the new house, I requested phone and DSL to Telecom Italia. It was just after Christmas. It took them 2 weeks (two) to connect my phone line (it had the dialtone since day one) and over a month to get DSL. I thought "welcome back to the third world of technology". I moved back to the US quite fast, after setting up the development office in Pavia and the business office in Milan.
Last week, I moved from my house in Menlo Park to a bigger house in Menlo Park (I needed a family room all for myself to accommodate my SlingBox). I called AT&T to move phone line and DSL (AT&T Yahoo). The phone moved overnight, with the same number. I was amazed. At 7 am sharp, it ringed to tell me it was ready (it actually woke me up, but who cares?). Wow. That's great technology at work. See ya Telecom Italia.
The same night, AT&T called saying they had some issues with the DSL. I replied that it was strange, since I had DSL two miles away and the guy in the house had DSL up to the day before I moved in. They said "yep, we know, but...".
After a week of looking at my DSL router with the blinking red light, I called. The lady said that it was not their fault, it was the fault of the "phone company". Who the hell is the phone company, when I am calling AT&T? Telecom Italia?? Anyway, apparently they do not have enough capacity for my DSL. Once it was disconnected, they gave it to someone else. Now I just have to wait, but they sort of assure me it is going to be connected by August 25th (that's three weeks from now...).
I am checking email in the morning and night with dial-up. It is a step forward since Italy, because there I could not even do that for two weeks (I was going berserk). But this is Silicon Valley. Menlo Park is the center of capital for every technology company in the world. I live at the border with Atherton, where the rich people are. This is supposed to be the first world. It is not. I should have guessed looking at the poles carrying electricity, phone and DSL, falling down at the first rain. Does anybody else find that bizarre? I guess we removed our last electricity pole in the fifties in Italy :-)
Welcome back to the third world of technology, Silicon Valley.
Yeah, DSL can take a bit of time. Generally, a home does not have its DSL line turned on (at first). So, when one orders DSL (my family has it from AT&T, before the AT&T Yahoo DSL, so Covad is the true carrier) the DSL company has to call the phone company and tell them to turn the DSL to number xxx-xxx-xxxx on. If your house was built in the late 70's like mine, it does not have the proper equipment at the residence to enable DSL. So, he phone company has to come out to set it up. This usually takes a couple of weeks (since communications between telecom providers is always slooowwwww, you'd think that they were using dial-up). Basically, the local telecom provider here in my part of Santa Rosa (the dead Telecom Valley :( ) is SBC (now AT&T I guess), but at the time when we got DSL it was SBC.
I'm in the same boat. At least I was reminded of the modem screech when logging into dial up. I leave my sound on just to get a little flashback. Hopefully we will both be back in the fast lane soon.
Donald C. Kirker said... 
