Cable horror

It’s just about time for me to get entangled in the web of a broadband setup again.
I decided for the sake of myself and my family to hook up this poor house with broadband Internet. I tried to do this a few months ago with ADSL, but although they were spamming us with promises of how easy it is to get it setup, it obviously wasn’t.

So this time I thought cable would do the trick. Let me tell you one thing. Never ever trust these people. They run two godawful newspapers, radio broadcasts for the demented and this unbelievably stupid Internet provider. Complete with clueless customer support. Here’s the deal:

We asked what would happen if we decided to go for cable. They said someone would come over, look at the connection, then the whole thing would go through and someone would come to install the thing. Sounded comfortable enough.

Well, signed up, nobody came, two weeks later a letter arrived with access codes and all that. Not a single word about a cable modem, hardware setup or the mystery “someone” to inspect the connection. Called them up, asked what was going on. They told me someone from the cable provider would call, fix a date and install. Called those up to make sure they got the right number. They told me they don’t do installation, they’d only send the modem. Well, quite a surprise, but I could live with that. A bit of drilling here (aided by able people), some plugging there, and we would be up and running. Unfortunately, they don’t want to give me that modem just yet. Why? They say I need a double plug for the whole thing to work. If I can’t tell them what kind of plug I have, they won’t give me the modem, because they need to know which kind of cable to give me with it. Unfortunately, I can’t just get the modem and then do everything myself. Why, you may ask. Because they “don’t guarantee for anything”…whatever that may mean.

Alright, maybe I’ll have broadband sometime. If I do, you’ll be the first to know.