Doug's Take on Daily life

Beginning next week, many television service providers are increasing their rates again. It’s now getting very close to $100/home to have what many people would claim to be a normal level of service. Is $100 too much for TV?
This question is very interesting these days as some never before available options are now becoming available. IPTV is here and relatively cheap (free in some cases). With service providers reaching $100/month and the economy floundering, these other options start to look very attractive.
If you have access to over the air (OTA) TV signals, then you can take advantage of completely free TV. This would only provide you with network TV options, but many people can get by with this. Add in Netflix streaming for movies and you could have an arrangement that provides you with significant programming at a fraction of the cost a service provider may charge. Even sports buffs can take advantage of ESPN via ESPN360.com if they are with an Internet Service Provider that carries this option.
Granted programming via IPTV may not be in High Definition, but as approach that magic $100 threshold, watching a program at a reasonable fee may be more important than watching it in the best possible quality. The service providers are doing what they need to do to make a profit. Unfortunately, prices are getting out of reach and more and more people will seek cheaper alternatives even if that means a reduction in what is available to them.

Well after getting my Internet connection up on Tuesday for a few hours it went down again in the afternoon .. After another phone call, a visit to the AT&T store to pick up a “supported” modem and yet another phone call, I finally got moved to the right group of people to fix the problem.

For some reason my properly provisioned line became improperly provisioned. A flip of a switch by the last guy I talked to and voila .. Success.

AT&T wanted to charge me $99 to talk to a specialist on how to configure my “unsupported” modem. Guess what, the problem was on their end which is what I was saying the whole time. I’ve actually been around this block a few times, but when I said the dirty word of unsupported modem the folks on the front line simply assumed that I was wrong so I needed to go spend an arm and a leg to solve a problem that didn’t exist.

I solved that problem alright, I went to the AT&T store, picked up a $100 2-wire modem that is supported and a nice little rebate form for $100 .. Yup, you heard it right, Once I had the right modem @ my house they were more than happy to send me off to the right group to solve the problem.

Oh, and for the record, that brandy spanking new 2-wire modem that is supported .. It didn’t work either, go figure.

In the end, I’m up now $30/month cheaper than my month-to-month with DSLExtreme. But more importantly, I’m ready to switch to Uverse when it comes available and youbetcha .. I’m gonna take advantage of their “free” gateway for Uverse. This $100 DSL modem that they just sold me is going to be a complete waste on their part.

The first thing that comes to mind when the Internet goes down is that it stinks. This happened at our house yesterday. The biggest problem was that I couldn’t troll the Internet looking for the answer because I wasn’t connected. This made for some interesting conversations in the house: “Dad, I have to do my homework” and “I’d like to go on the Internet, too.”

In the end, the outage was about 24 hours. Much more than I would have liked, but better than a worst case scenario. The problem was that AT&T neglected to actually provide me with some critical login information. 2 calls to AT&T support resulted in one CSR sending me off to a pay-for service and the next saying that it could take until 11:59pm (sure, but the DSL portion is working .. I just don’t have an IP number). After a call this morning basically using the phrase “it doesn’t work” I found a much more helpful CSR .. OK, they weren’t really that much more helpful, but they did find the right script screen .. Turns out the first two CSRs thought the service was DHCP even though I asked both of them if it were PPPoE. The third CSR from this morning didn’t really seem to know either, but she did say I had to register first. I said, great, but I don’t have Internet so how can I register? Bingo! I said the right thing.

Once I said this, she gave me the default Password to connect to AT&T DSL via PPPoE. Once I had this information I was able to get on the Internet enough to get to the register site. Once registered, I can use my login/password to connect to PPPoE and voila .. Internet is working again. WooHoo!

All of this to make sure the switch to U-Verse goes smoothly in a few weeks (or months). Seems if you have third-party DSL that AT&T won’t switch you over to U-Verse until you switch to AT&T DSL first. Well, step one is now out of the way and I’ll live with it until it’s time to switch again.

Such is life. At least it’s not Comcast

I’ve gotten more involved with Twitter recently. Maybe it’s good, maybe it’s bad – I don’t know. Still, I’ve gotta say the Tweetie 2 app for iPhone rocks. It’s far above any of the other apps that I have tried and unless something more awesome slips in, I’m almost certain to stick with this app. Sadly, good things in life do not come free. The app is $2.99, but that’s nearly free in my book.

If you’re looking for a good Twitter App for your iPhone. Tweetie 2 is a great choice.

I guess it had to happen sometime, but still this was a little unexpected. A few days ago (October 5, 2009), the FTC announced new guidelines for bloggers. Now, if a blogger writes a review and said blogger received free (or discounted) services or equipment, this must be disclosed or they could be fined.

I can see how this is could be important and is most relevant in cases where a blogger is being paid to write a good review regardless of whether or not that blogger believes in the review. This way the reader can make an informed decision as to whether or not to believe the blogger.

As many of you know, I help DIRECTV test new equipment and software. Sometimes there are perks associated with this, but my passion is real. In any event, looks like I will be adding a disclaimer moving forward just so that everyone is aware of the circumstances. I think it will go something like this:

Please note that some DBSTalk.com testers and staff members may have received free equipment from DIRECTV or its partners for the purpose of evaluation and testing.

Cheers

I’m about ready to start work on a Year 3 article for the DIRECTV HD DVR. If anyone has some ideas, I’m all ears.

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