DSL is dead! Long live DSL!

In December 1999 we ordered DSL through Flashcom. We got a 440K connection (we're 12K+ feet from the CO), and things were wonderful. With a faster and always-on connection, you're much more willing to do things online, because your brain doesn't freeze while waiting for slow Web pages.

But then Flashcom went belly-up in December 2000. After looking around, and getting no help from Flashcom, we switched to Telocity. A very nice company, they were competent and forthcoming about our order status and milestones. Good connection, too, plus web space. Things were rosy.

Then Northpoint, the DSL provisioner for Flashcom and Telocity here, filed for bankruptcy and pulled their connections pretty much immedately. (At least Flashcom let things continue to run for several months.) Telocity was great, notifying us that the line was going dead, providing us with a dial-up account, looking for a new provisioner, suspending billing, and promising a free month when service was restored.

Now it turns out that the only other provisioner to here is Covad. And Covad doesn't use the same equipment as Northpoint (shared line vs. separate line). Because the lines to our house are so old and because the lines have so many additional "bridge taps", Covad can't provide service.

Cable isn't available. DSL isn't available. The only thing other than dial-up to the house is IDSL, which is DSL over ISDN. Lots more expensive and lots slower (144K max). Yuck. So now we have left the ultra-chic world of broadband and are back with the dial-up plebians. And we've returned to GeoCities as our web host, so get used to the ad box in the upper right corner.