spilde
join:2001-05-06
Los Angeles, CA
|  Hand-made, top execs, clean room, HQ top floor?
What's the source? Would an AT&T worker be that creative at fabricating something? Doesn't anyone know a joke when he or she reads one? Anyway, my old modem was a LanCity (Bay Networks, then NetGear, now part of Nortel?). My cable company (AT&T, or maybe its predecessor Mediaone) offered me a Com21 DOXport DP1110 for about $100. It's DOCSIS 1.0 compliant and 1.1 firmware upgradeable (by the cable company's upstream equipment). Although it does have a five year warranty, it has a cheap looking small blue plastic case. I miss the big, rounded, somewhat streamline moderne looking, heat sink atop the LanCity case. It appeared to have been made from lengths of extruded metal (heat sink included) cut to size and sealed with metal end panels. It certainly didn't look or feel cheap. Buying a modem cut my bill $10.00 a month. Currently, I'm paying $35.92 plus $1.97 in franchise fees (I think they might have increased the cable service charge a few dollars a while back). I get four AT&T bills a month for internet, local cable phone, long distance (cancelled, but they still send me a -$2.49 credit balance, do not pay, statement every month), and an ex-girlfriend's wireless. At least they used to lump my internet service bill with my digital cable TV bill when I tried that for a few months (most of the important channels were still analog), and I just got automatic recurring payments on my internet access. I'd go across town to pay my overdue local cable phone bill (four AT&T bills a month seem to be more than I can handle without occasional confusion), but they're never open when there's light traffic (no phone, internet, or automatic payments available). |
