it…out

So we decided to ditch mediacom…except not…

We signed up for Dish Network . They scheduled an installation and then called and said they had no receivers and they would reschedule. They have done that two more times since then. So eventually we will have Dish with a DVR and all sorts of fun stuff, but right now we do not. We cancelled our digital cable account and cable modem service and turned in the hardware. However, we still have basic cable coming into the house for free. A call to Mediacom confirmed this. I guess we have free cable until they come by and disconnect us, which will have to tide us over until dish gets its act together.

Now for the story of DSL and MSN and hell:
We signed up for Qwest DSL “powered by MSN.” The service was so cheap we decided to put up with the whole MSN thing. Until the service actually began that is. The modem arrived and I set it up and started installing their stupid MSN 8 software because I couldn’t get the modem working with our router. Doing things the MSN 8 way didn’t work either and I found out that this was because we were given the wrong authentication information. They gave us the right username, but no actual password. After calling MSN, we had a shiny new password and were well on the way to initializing the DSL connection. The modem flashed and things seemed to be working. Then all the lights on the modem went out. I reset the modem and then all the lights on the modem were on. That didn’t look good so I called MSN and they told me that I “made the modem defective” and that they would send me a new one in 11 business days and that I could “have some fun” with the old one. I called MSN again and cancelled our service with them and then called Qwest to have them be our ISP instead of MSN. I guess the guy who called us about switching to DSL forgot to mention that we didn’t have to go with MSN and that we could have Qwest provide all services. I think this is kind of ironic since that guy actually worked for Qwest.

So now we have Qwest as our ISP and their DSL modem should arrive this week. Oddly enough, another MSN DSL modem arrived at our door over the weekend. I called MSN and told them that we were no longer customers and we didn’t need the replacement DSL modem anymore. They said “you aren’t with us no more. keep it. Do what you want with it. Thanks for calling MSN.” So not only does MSN not care about losing DSL modems (admitedly they are indistinguishable from squirrel excrement), but they encourage you to have fun with the discarded hardware.

So, to sum up: we have free cable and I’m connected to our neighbors WAP.