It took much longer than I would have liked, but RohJuh.com is finally back online. SBC (now AT&T) is the culprit for the delay. Our new phone service was supposed to begin on Jan 03, but I couldn’t do the online sign up for DSL (I wanted to get the cheaper rate) until the phone service was active. So I waited until Jan 03 to sign up for DSL. On that day, I discovered to my dismay that even though my phone service was active, it apparently wasn’t “in the system” yet – that would take another couple of days.

It wasn’t until Jan 05 that SBC’s system was properly updated, enabling me to sign up online for DSL. As I was signing in, I had the option of choosing the DSL Pro service. Awesome! I’ve been wanting the Pro service for some time due to its faster download as well as upload speeds. I committed to a 6-month contract of the Pro service for $21.99/mo. My order was processed, I received email confirmation, and I tracked the status daily. My activation date was going to be Jan 12. We moved on Jan 07 so it would be less than a week without internet access. Far from ideal, but bearable.

On Jan 09, I received an email from SBC informing me that the DSL speed I had ordered was not available at my address. I was too far from the CO. Lame! Why let me sign up for the Pro service in the first place if it wasn’t available? I figured they would simply just give me the lower speed DSL Express instead. Not wanting to leave anything to chance, I decided to call to confirm. Good thing I did because I was told that since the original service tier I ordered was not available, my order was cancelled. If I still wanted the DSL Express service, I’d have to place my order again and get back in the activation queue. WTF? How lame is that?!

So I placed my order again and had to wait about 5 business days for the service to be activated. Today was the activation day. Fortunately, I was able to get things up and running without much of a hitch. I am now happily surfing the net again from home and RohJuh.com is once again live. It’s pretty amazing how much the internet has become a part of our lives, at least for me. I was getting some pretty bad withdrawal symptoms!

I was hoping for some faster speeds because our new address is closer to the CO:
14,600 ft (old place in Belmont)
11,898 ft (new place in Palo Alto)
< 9,500 ft required for Pro service

So far, broadbandreports.com indicates that my speeds are comparable to those I was getting at our Belmont residence. I’m still optimistic, however because the modem supposedly performs some optimization routines over the course of a few days to maximize speeds. Hopefully I’ll see some further improvements as in the coming weeks.

Posted by Roger at 11:51 PM.