I never wrote the story about my DSL saga back in 2001 because frankly it would've taken a book to describe the whole story. It took a court order to get my twisted pair back from Earthlink after Flashcom went bankrupt and gave them my account. Even though I signed up with Earthlink even though I could not use their service but did so just so I could pay a $100 cancellation fee so they would disconnect my line and give it back. It was the only way to get my circuit disconnected. Even after all the gyrations, they never disconnected it and the circuit ended up in legal limbo and couldn't be used by anybody.

Fast forward to 2006. The latest chapter is no exception. Sometime last week my DSL line went down. The connection just vanished. I've spent a week and numerous service calls to get it back. But I don't have it back. I only have something that works for now. I don't believe I can ever get my service back again the way it was. 

In the meantime, I've broken into my DSL modem, and changed just about every setting on it (hundreds) in a few thousand different combinations.  I've got a new DSL modem. This is the fourth modem I've been through this week. I've got a new DSL circuit from AT&T.

What don't I have? One stinkin' static IP. You'd think this would be easy, but in 2006, static IP's are a thing of the past. The AT&T call center in India can't give me one. Even though I pay about $50 a month extra above the base DSL rate so I can get five of them. They wouldn't give me just one. But that was Pacific Bell. Now it's AT&T. AT&T doesn't like giving out static IP's for any amount of money. The local installer can't get one for me. Neither can his service office and neither can his boss. All they can get me is another dynamic IP, which I can't use (but I'll use right now - it beats no IP at all). And they're still charging me $50 extra each month for the five static IP's which they refuse to sell  me.

The worst part of it is that they are telling me that I've got a static IP. I don't, and I've wasted a lot of time trying to prove it to them - but there's nobody to listen; and the two or three people left in the company who even know what a static IP is can't get past internal politics to make it right for me and give me what I paid for. Nobody cares.

Welcome to the new AT&T. Same as the old AT&T. But be warned - if you're an AT&T residential customer with static IP's, you're gonna' lose 'em. It is no longer a supported configuration. They will turn them off whenever they feel like it, and you'll never get 'em back, and there's jack you can do about it.