Battle Cry

BattleCry

Hey that’s pretty cool stuff . . .

“Earlier this week, the Board of Supervisors passed a resolution condemning the “act of provocation” by what it termed an “anti-gay,” “anti-choice” organization that aimed to “negatively influence the politics of America’s most tolerant and progressive city.”

If the San Francisco Council condemned them, then I probably support them. . .
San Fran Article

🙂

Broadband Connectivity

DSL
Being 2 miles from a Central Office doesn’t help when the phone line runs more than 3 miles before it comes to your house.

Ugh. . . I’ve been hunting for an affordable Broadband solution for about 3 years for where we moved in the Texas Hill Country. Although we are literally 5 miles from Austin City Limits as the crow flies, Broadband other than sattelite has only been available for 18 months. That is from the Cable Company at a full $42 dollars a month. Now that’s not bad, but it makes me kinda sick to see all the Phone company ads for a $13 internet when I can’t get it. But over the last few months I’ve been gettting some flyers in the mail regarding DSL access. I’ve been interested but doubted that the marketers knew what they were talking about. But hey I keep up at DSL Reports and map out the Central Office, which has to be within about 3 miles of a residence to provide Broadband service. And lo and behold a new one appeared a couple months ago. Wow, you know as the crow flies that has got be less than 2 miles from my house. . . I even mapped it out and did an approximate overlay. Wow Really close. . .

So I call up SBC oops I mean AT&T Ma Bell reconstituted and check to see what is available. The first few times I did this in December and at a store in January they said Nope no dice not quite there yet. . . But with the new CO and the mailers, I thought ahh maybe. . . so I put in for a manual loop check cause the first person I talked to said my address was closest to a Central Office in Dripping Springs, TX. Now I know that’s not my CO my local phone wouldn’t start with that pre-fix if I had one. So off to manual check. I give my life information, . . . name, address, mobile number so they can contact and they want a home phone. I’m like nope don’t have one. . . but I’ll sign up if DSL is available.

I wait a few days and get back a few conflicting reports some are like I’m not sure and one person says yep, DSL is most likely available, but I’ll have to order my phone line to be sure. . . Hmm. . . Well seeing as I can see the CO is less than a couple miles from my house now, I think now finally someone who makes sense!

Now my beautiful bride rolls her eyes when I tell her this information and says “They Lie” But I convince her I’ve opened a trouble ticket I’ve got the number and so and so said it was a go! . . .
She just rolled her eyes again. . .

But I’m convinced and push foward. . . I order the line Thursday a week ago and push ahead with the DSL order. Within a few minutes I have email confirmations on the phone line and a cryptic unable to verify account information error on the DSL order. Well, I’m not giving up now so I give AT&T a call to verify. They let me know they think DSL is for sure available at least better than 50/50 ha ha and I need to wait till the line comes active scheduled for last Tuesday. So I wait, I’m assured by so and so that I’ll recieve a callback as soon as they know something so I wait. Tuesday morning and afternoon come and go, my phone line activated Mon, I had a nice guy Mike with SBC local who called and it worked like a champ, but no call from the DSL lady. . . Okay so I give them a ring. . . through the voice prompts I go where I end up back in DSL sales. . . “Oh your account is on hold!” ? Huh Two service reps have requested a manual loop check and they lock the account till that is clear. I show so and so (original contact) has scheduled a follow-up tommorow. . . So I say okay and I wait.

Wed morning comes and goes, Wed afternoon comes and goes, no call from AT&T. . . okay so I call them back. Whew whew round and round I go where I stop nobody knows back to DSL sales.

“Your account has been set at a status red and didn’t you recieve the letter?” Says the nice but evidently very poorly aquainted with the US Postal service. I ask when did they send the letter? Oh. . . that was yesterday, she says seemingly understading her earlier misstatement. . .
Okay I say, is their any possiblity that the manual check will come back that DSL was available?

Not very likely she says. . . so that’s a wrap, less than 2 miles from the CO as the crow flies but no DSL for me not at $13 not a $17 not a $39 dollars! nada nothing zilch. . .

Ugh. . . So I ask to speak with someone who can cancel my brand new local line that I ordered since I was told DSL was available. . . and back transfer land whew whew off to local billing where I explain the situtation and ask to cancel. After 5 minutes of rebuttals and trying to get me to keep the local service that I only ordered because I was told I would have DSL I finally get a disconnect order. Now I ask, I made a pre-payment? How will that be refunded, and will my complete installation charge be refunded? hmm that was too long of a pause. Now I had asked this question multiple times before ordering, I was assured each and every time that this would be the case all charges would be refunded, if DSL wasn’t available after all.

“But your line was installed” she litterally stammers. . . I politiely explain that I only ordered the line since I was told DSL was available, and since DSL wasn’t available I would need to have all charges refunded. “Who can help me with that?” I asked. . .”Okay I’ll transfer you to the DSL billing department she says.” Whew whew red flags go up and I stop that with a firm but polite. “Wait a minute, are you saying that the DSL billing department is going to be able to help me with a charge that I recived from your department for my local phone installation?” She admits, “Well they probably can’t do anything for you.” Okay I say “Who can you connect me with that can help me with my problem?” I’m still pretty cheery, since I know if I’m rude or obstinate, it won’t get me anywhere but dead air and a tired low paying local billing CSR will probably not even be reprimanded, since it’s hard to even catch their names. Off to a “Billing Specialist” Ahh. . . finally this person seems to emphathize with my plight of round about order for DSL being told it was available and then finding out it wasn’t, she knows how to work the SBC billing system. “Okay let me cancel that first disconnect” Huh? Yep that’s what she did and she reset the disconnect date to the initial date of installation or in SBC lingo ASI date. That was last Tuesday although they were fast and it came up on Mon, Evidently since ASI and Disconnect are on the same date that will cancel all billed charges and issue a full credit of my pre-payment back to me via check. This CSR was really helpful and gave me the new disconnect order number. Very nice, I’m holding onto that and her name so I can watch to make sure that happens. . .but I think I’m happy. . .

But not about not having broadband.

C

Why is a Domain Name Monopoly a Good Idea?

Go Daddy opposes ICANN-VeriSign agreement

Yesterday, February 28, ICANN announced that its Board of Directors met and approved the pending deal with VeriSign for the .COM registry. The agreement will let VeriSign raise registration fees by 7% annually in four of the next six years. It will also give VeriSign control of the .COM registry indefinitely, as it extends VeriSign’s “presumptive renewal” right when this agreement ends in 2012.

The deal was approved by a majority vote, with nine voting in favor and five voting against. One director abstained. Vinton Cerf, who is the Chairman of ICANN and also now an employee of Google®, voted in favor of the give-away.

Following the vote, Credit Suisse increased the price target on VeriSign stock. Their analyst describes the .COM registry as VeriSign’s highest margin business (before any price increases). He goes on to say that the compounding effect of just the price increases could represent a net present value of $4 to $5 per share for VeriSign, or 1 to 1.25 billion dollars. The price increases will start in 2007.

Go Daddy CEO and Founder Bob Parsons is voicing strong disapproval of this agreement. “The agreement is a bad deal for our customers and the Internet community as a whole,” said Parsons.

“The fact that this deal was approved is a loud signal that major changes are needed at ICANN. If we don’t step up and overhaul ICANN, and leave the Internet largely under the control of this incredibly inept organization, this will go a long way in providing the United Nations with the ammunition it needs to start taking control of the Internet – that must never happen.”

From here, before the deal becomes final, the U.S. Department of Commerce will still need to approve it. If you are disappointed with this recent decision, consider writing a letter to your Senator and Congressperson. You can find the email address of your representatives at the following two Websites:
For the Senate:
www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
For the House:
www.house.gov/writerep/
For more information about the agreement, please visit Bob Parsons’ blog – Hot Points! – at www.BobParsons.com.

Yeah what Bob says. . .

Cliff’s
ICANN handles who gets control of the TLD (Top Level Domains) for the Internet, Verisign has had .com and .net since inception. ICANN doesn’t generate money to fight Verisign in court, Verisign sued ICANN over a shutdown of auto fowarding that Verisign implemented that caused a large scale backlash in the Internet community. Verisign sued ICANN, this agreement dismisses the lawsuit and gives Verisign a couple billion dollars over the next 6 years and auto renewal.

Basically lock in your domain names long term now cause they are about to go up!

C