Ah, the joys of dial-up

Well, I'm currently on dial-up. How this happened, I'm not certian. But the truth is, I really, really hate dial-up. I haven't had to use it in a couple of years, but what with DirecTV leaving me nicely in the lurch, I switched... just in time for the holidays.

So, I sit here in DSL silence.

Even getting DSL isn't going to make this better; I'm finding out about the wonderful experience of PPPoE. It's not pretty.

PPPoE's major disadvantage is that it turns on and off as you need it. Think "dial-in" every time you need it... making the concept of a "static IP" a little strange. As far as I can figure, I'm paying $15 a month for Earthlink to give me the same IP address each time I dial in.

So, in talking with my wonderful sister-in-law, Lara, she informed me that most people use software to keep the connection alive. Joy, my router/NAT addresser doesn't do keep connection alive, yet. I'm hoping an upgrade will do it, otherwise, i'm going to a Linksys and tossing this piece of off-brand crap.

Yeah, it's a joyous christmas. I'm hoping for a happy new year.

Posted by Ted Stevko at December 22, 2002 12:59 PM