Cable, Wherefore Art Thou?

First the good news.

1. Those Earthlink guys in New Delhi are exceedingly polite.

2. Time Warner technicians show up on time.

Okay, finito for the good news.

Let's recap, shall we? On Thursday, Time Warner sent Josh over to install my shiny new modem and to run cable up an outside wall into my upstairs office.

That went smoothly.

Okay, finito for smoothly.

Josh hooked up all the doo-hinkeys, made all the configuration setting adjustments, and the computer boasted proudly of its new speed.

Only one problem. Despite proclaiming its high-falutin' connection, I was unable to access the Internet, nor send and receive email. Minor problem, except that this is the sole purpose for having said connection.

Not to worry. Josh was on the case...only, after trying everything he could think of, he finally broke down and (shamefaced) called his supervisor who informed him that everything looked fine on Time Warner's end, concluding that my best bet (read: ONLY bet) was to contact Earthlink and tell them to "migrate" my account.

I threw up my hands and figured, later. I'd call them later.

Cut to later: long story short, the exceedingly polite New Delhi guy tells me that it HAS been migrated. As far as they're concerned, case closed. Earthlink has done its part. Now it's up to Time Warner...who agrees to send out another technician on Friday.

(Sigh. This story's becoming real tedious, huh?)

Anyway, two technicians show up on Friday (again, promptly!). After a couple hours, they gave up the ghost. Call Earthlink, they're told by their supervisor. To his credit, the Time Warner guy made the call, only to be run through the same diagnostics I've already tried. In the end, the two technicians left...and I still had no cable connection.

Yesterday (here's the finest moment thus far, really) I got on the phone again. Tried Time Warner first and, after punching in all the appropriate selections, got: "I'm sorry. We're experiencing an unusually high volume of calls. Please try again later." Click. (Gee, why am I not surprised about the high volume??)

Tried Earthlink again. Same thing. (And here I'd thought calling on a weekday was a brighter idea. NOT.)

Next, I gambled on a live chat with Earthlink. Polite New Delhi guy number one transferred me to Polite New Delhi guy number two who almost let me cancel the whole shebang until he realized the cable had already physically been installed and transferred me to Polite New Delhi guy number three...who...you guessed it...told me I had to contact Time Warner for connectivity issues.

So that, dear readers, is where things currently stand. Meanwhile, I'm using dial-up at the rate of $1 an hour to access the Internet. Can't WAIT to address the issue of nonpayment when Time Warner broaches the subject.