Argh! This is supposed to be broadband?

I just love how I have this seemingly part-time connection to the internet tonight. Sometimes I can connect, other times there’s absolutely nothing, even testing it with pinging. It’s driving me up the wall, if you want to know the truth. It isn’t my machine. It isn’t even my local provider. It’s somewhere down the line from my local provider, although it could even be one of their servers. I have no idea where since all I get are blank lines with no server names in the ping report. Then, suddenly, a page will load. Click on a link, wait, wait, wait, and it times out. Over and over again.

I am not amused.

Overall, I am not happy with Charter Cable’s Pipeline service and I am tired of being the One who has to call them at least once a month to tell them when their system is not working, but there are, as far as I know, no other broadband providers in this area, and apparently not enough smart people working in our local Charter office to know or realize when we’ve all been cut off from the rest of the internetS. So it’s this or dialup. Uh, no thanks, you can keep dialup, I don’t want it.

Every single month since moving here, Pipeline has been flaky in one way or another. Every month. Without exception. Most of the time when I call them about it, they want to set me up with a service appointment, like I’m a newbie who doesn’t know wtf I’m doing. This is not my problem, it’s theirs. My cable and modem and router and computer are set up and working just fine. I should know, I’ve tested and set this thing up tons of times. And no, it’s not my router’s firmware needing upgrades, it’s up to date. I did that too. It’s not a flaky modem, the modem works perfectly when the connection is not flaking out on me. I know more about the setup I have here at home than most people ever want to know or care about, and it’s been done correctly.

Paul Allen (Microsoft guy and part-owner of Charter) please, get this company’s shit together and fix our connection in Upper Michigan so we can at least make it to Shitcago, ok?