It seemed so easy...my Internet provider was having a special on ADSL service and I finally decided to get it. (One of the last straws was that my entire book club was horrified that I still had dial-up when we went online at my place to read an article.) Well, it took them a while to get back to me. Then they kept sending me the contract as an attachment, and I couldn't open it. When I finally solved that, I faxed it to them and never heard anything for weeks. Turns out at one point they did phone but I didn't get the message. They never really tell me what to do, but I get the impression we need to go and pick up the modem from them, so my husband does. Doesn't work. Turns out we need a network card. Husband goes and shells out still more money to them for the card. Still doesn't work. Husband spends hours calling them up, doing what they tell him, still doesn't work.

Turns out that because we have an entryphone in our apartment, we need a splitter. Now, on the contract it asked you to check a box if you had an entryphone and then in tiny print said that in some older buildings, a special $100 splitter might be required, do you need one? Well, I have no idea and my building is only 8 years old, which I don't think counts as "older," folks. So the Internet company refers us to the phone company who appear to subcontract the ADSL part out, or something. Anyway, we get a message on the machine from a guy from *garbled* ADSL saying that he'll be by on Monday to check the phone between 8:00 and 5:30. Great, that old standby. Husband tries to call the guy at the number he left on the machine, and they've never heard of the guy and have no idea what my husband's talking about.

So, come Monday we have no idea if the guy will actually show up. If he does, he doesn't know our buzzer code to get into the building, so who knows what will happen. In the end, it was a woman and it appears to have only cost $40 for the splitter (Lord knows what'll show up on my Internet bill). BUT, IT STILL DOESN'T WORK! The woman told husband that sometimes they get modems that right out of the box just don't work. So, my husband has to go and pick up another modem today.

ARG! Dial-up may be slow, but it's a hell of a lot easier.