“Well, well, well, Mr. Land, and how is that should you know of such dealings,” doth the sharp inquisitor entertain.
I began to suspect that unseemly behavior might be afoot, when the order with AT&T for a low-cost ‘Lifeline’ telephone service proved active on the date and time indicated, yet seemed to produce unknown results upon order placement by my ISP, San Francisco Online, aka sfo dot com. A couple of days and a weekend later, my ISP emailed triumphantly that our DSL order had successfully gone through, and that he had a modem plus router combo unit available for us.
I had already tested the line with my Toshiba laptop’s dial-up modem test, courtesy of an HP Vista Home Premium operating system pre-installed on a hard drive that I had to transplant in order to use the Atheros Wireless-G mini-PCI card, since oddly enough there aren’t any XP drivers available that work.
(Yes, I am uncertain how I am supposed to activate my apparently single-use copy of Microsoft’s operating system, and I suspect that installing an OEM copy of Windows 7 OEM from Dell’s Asus-based Eee netbook 1100 will prove unwise. It’s bad enough that this supremely under-performing Intel Centrino-based, Toshiba Satellite L35-S2316 lap-top reaches skin-scalding temperatures; I cannot imagine how slow its crawl would be with the default Vista Basic installation, even when ‘maxed’ out by just one of my pair of 2GB DDR2 SODIMM RAM chips from my HP dv-9205us Media Center bling-top whose 17″ LCD was stabbed straight through its heart and no longer satisfies.)
This combination modem and router is pretty fantastic, imho. IT supports ADSL2 among other advanced-ness, and provides the proven Wireless-G protocol/service. It is largely completely automatic, and has even proven itself a remarkably good trainer of the most sublime variety.
Nota-bene: It should WORK and my 3rd-party ISP should receive applause for excellent service BARRING interference from greedy telecomm monopolists!
I am currently documenting my experience, not from the comfort of my sofa-futon, to which I deservedly should be confined given the 6 exceptionally sewn stitches in my left forearm, rather from the quaint, yet cosmopolitan Cafe Dejena near the Macarthur BART in Oakland, CA. (I suggested that my friend the owner of EB Checker Cab place his Google Places sticker on their window as a gesture of neighborly cooperation between Berkeley and Oakland; let’s hope that neither greed, nor selfishness, or worst, that the desperation that results from too long obsessing over earnings instead of service, hasn’t taken over his normal state of perfect sanity. Surely he’ll not place the sticker in the window of his home…, right?)
My apologies, as I’ve moved entirely off-topic, as any other common Brownian:
While AT&T awaits verification of eligibility for Lifeline service, it nonetheless proceeds to bill us at its normal usurious rates, and therefore we are entitled to be as fully served as any other regularly, exploited customer. We shouldn’t find ourselves ‘urged’, ‘nudged’ or ‘manipulated’ into selecting their Uverse ‘fiber-optic’ service, no less ‘attractive’, now featuring a 25% smaller wireless modem rebate than with the identical offer of January 2010; beware of conspicuously absent 1-year contracts found on all of the slower DSL services that plainly must use the same twisted pair as the fiber service.
You may recall my mention of how I already paid a $100 float to AT&T earlier this year, from money intended to reinstate my driver license, only to find myself not only a new record in AT&T’s Fraud Database, but also the proud owner of an AT&T Uverse modem. I’ll only have pay AT&T another $450 float (aka deposit) to get service; coincidentally, this is echoed by a $400 float requirement for similar broadband wireless from Verizon. (It was failed Verizon T1 hardware that cost me my Green Dot job as Systems Manager when my team failed to meet a Safeway-issued ultimatum, but that’s a story for later.)
Hmm…, both fiber AND cable purport to support huge bandwidths in comparison to twisted-pair of copper telephone wires. Has anyone considered using braided-triplets of copper wire to increase the rejection of cross-talk…, you know, like those in use by our solar systems and galaxies? Thunderbolts!
-Anonymous Engineer
The Wireless G ADSL Firewall Modem Router (TEW-435BRM) delivers an all-in-one high-performance Internet and wireless network access solution.
No need to buy a separate modem and router. The TEW-435BRM offers an access point, ADSL modem, firewall, Internet router and 4-port switch in a single product. Install this device in minutes and seamlessly surf the Internet, download files, play games and talk Online.
The most advanced wireless security protocols (up to WPA2-PSK) are supported. Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) allows users to securely synchronize wireless peripheral devices at the touch of a button. A firewall featuring Network Attached Translation (NAT) and Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI) protect against over 2000 unique documented Internet attacks.
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