I haven’t been able to post any photos to my blog, or even
read and write email from home with any ease since we got
back from our camping vacation on 17 August. Our
DSL service (by Covad) and
phone lines (AT&T) have been seriously messed up. After many laboriously-scheduled and days-delayed home visits by technical support
from both Covad and AT&T, we understand that the phone wires are too long
from AT&T’s central office, plus the wires are old and deteriorating.
Many customers in our area of Willow Glen (San Jose) complain frequently
but we have not heard that there is any plan to fix the problem. Our
next door neighbor uses
cable modem (which he says works great at 2 a.m. but less well otherwise).
John has contacted
Etheric Networks about getting radio
broadband point-to-point high speed internet installed to replace DSL.
Since we had Sprint broadband (before their performance tanked),
we already have an antenna bolted to our chimney. We hope that the
new service can be installed tomorrow afternoon. It costs more but
does not rely on phone lines to work. It also will allow us to continue
to have our own servers with static IP addresses.
Right now, in order to read email for about 10 minutes before it breaks
again, I have to:
- Go downstairs to the basement and toggle the round button on
the back of the BritePort DSL modem so that it resets - Go upstairs to my desk, unplug then replug my SunRay
- Wait 3 minutes for the login box to appear on my monitor
- Use my Sun enigmacard to generate a password
- Wait 3 minutes for everything to reset over and over and finally
display my current work space - Work really quick until it breaks. Start over.
Oh, the joys of trying to work from home.
KatysBlog 