DJSkyler.com

It’s been a long stretch since my last post. I don’t have any excuses for a 7-month gap, but there have been mitigating factors:

When I moved into this apartment back in June of 2006, I upgraded my DSL connection. I remember downloading songs from Napster back in 1999 at a painfully slow 24 kilobytes per second in dial-up, so the DSL connection at my last residence was quite a treat at a speed of about 125 kilobytes per second. And the step up to 600kb/s download speed of the SBC DSL Elite package for this move was delightful to say the least. It was so fast that it actually exceeded the speed of some parts of the internet. That is, I could now detect which websites or files were served by hosts slower than my home internet speed.

But that all ended right before Thanksgiving. Since I wasn’t downloading any large files, it took a day for me to realize that web pages were loading painfully slow. I confirmed the problem by activating Juice. This is an old program for downloading podcasts, and one that tended to take full advantage of my maximum download speed (it generally always sped up to 600kb/s). That day my download speed for Juice maxed-out at about 70kb/s. I obtained the same poor speed results with GrabIt.

At first I assumed SBC was having some local problems. I had suffered through a couple of days of internet slowness last summer, but it all bounced back. But the speed didn’t bounce back this time, so during the weekend I finally called tech support.

SBC ran some tests on my line and concluded that everything was working fine from their end. I responded that my high-speed internet was still running horribly slow irregardless of their findings. I was handed over to a tech guy who had me run some tests at the official company speedtest site, and then more tests at the speed test page of my newshosting service, Giganews Newsgroup Access. The results of these tests, I thought, proved my contention that my DSL speeds were lacking. But the tech guy countered that the results were positive from testing my modem from his end, that some internet sites are slower than others and that the problems might be due to problems with my computer.

He was right about computer problems, I was starting to have crashes on my system. Little did I know my hard drive was due to fail within a month (perhaps more on that in a future post).

Still I further argued that I was clearly getting slow download speeds on my DSL connection. The tech guy demanded “How could you know that?” I answered that I could clearly see the difference when I utilized Juice. Tech guy asked me to explain what Juice is used for, and I explained that it is a simple program from downloading MP3s off of RSS feeds. He then concluded that I am getting poor DSL speeds because I am using that Juice program!

SBC Tech Guy further warned that if they sent technicians out to tweak the connection and the problem was found in a line inside my apartment, then I would have to pay full repair costs which might total in the hundreds of dollars. I didn’t like that prospect.

So I decided to drop the issue, at least until I mastered the problems with my PC and had an extra $200 to “fix the line.”

I lived with a 70kb/s speed on DSL until right before Christmas. Suddenly, for unknown reasons, my speed jumped back up again. Now it was topping off at about 275 kilobytes per second.

At that time, I received another PC to connect to my 2Wire modem*. It was a fast little Dell a friend had purchased at a garage sale. The poor little thing was full of viruses, and it was sent to me for a cleaning. It cleaned up just fine and it also confirmed that my speed issues were not my computer, as the freshly cleansed Dell likewise experienced the same max speed of about 275kb/s.

Certainly usage of the internet was more convenient at that more DSL-like speed of 275kb/s. It wasn’t what I was paying for, but I could live with it for the time being. Then my hard drive died. After I recovered from that, a lot of system problems I was living with cleared up but the speed remained the same.

I believe it was in March when I ventured to call tech support again to complain about my DSL speed. But during that time period, my internet provider had fully changed over from SBC Global Internet to their new face, AT&T Yahoo Internet. Here’s how that call went: “Hi, I don’t believe I am getting the full speed of my DSL plan.” AT&T: “Really? Let me check from my end…yes there seems to be a problem…okay try it now.” Suddenly my 600 kilobytes per second internet speed was fully restored.

Yes, it appears all someone had to do, all this time, was to flick a switch.

I will probably never know what went on “behind the scenes” concerning this technical difficulty. It seems I should be due some sort of refund since I did not receive the service I was paying for, but I was also getting a discount on that service as a first year special, thus eliminating whatever refund might be negotiated. AT&T just sent me a letter informing me that although the discount period is ending, I will continue to receive the DSL Elite Plan with a slightly lesser discount (raising the rate five bucks a month, at least I’m getting the discount on something I’m actually getting).

*As a side note, I learned some tips from the tech support calls. For one thing I found I could communicate with my 2Wire internet modem through my browser by using the address “http://gateway.2wire.net/“. Furthermore I found I could turn off the wireless function on said modem so that neighbors can’t hack into my connection (contrary to what the installation tech told me).