Hrm. I guess I still DO have dial-up access, because I'm using it now.

The guy came out this morning - the digital cable was no problem, got that all hooked up fine. But the cable internet - ah, that was a problem.

People still on dialup, longing for broadband? Trust me, you DO NOT WANT (hah. DO NOT WANT, as the LOLcats say) broadband if you have to set it up yourself.

Which I essentially tried to do. Guy hooked up the cable modem, informed me that he "wasn't allowed to touch" routers (apparently because the customer bought them, it's their problem - or maybe the cable company got too many instances of customers claiming that the cable guys mucked up the routers).

But, he said, it's easy peasy. You can totally do it.

Well, first problem - no instruction book with the router. None. A CD-ROM telling how to set it up, but no instructions beyond "plug this in first, then plug in this other thing."

What I didn't know was that you needed to get the computer to talk directly to the modem (or so the tech-guy told me) first.

I spent a solid hour on the phone with one of the cable company's tech guys. (And I will add this was with the cable modem, router, and computer, and all the cords and wires appartaining thereto, spread out in an unholy spaghetti across my hall floor. My hall connects my office - which is where the computer normally resides and which is the Room Without Cable Outlets - and my living room, which is where the cable outlet is. And I was sitting in the square foot or so of floor not taken up by electronic equipment. So it was deucedly uncomfortable.)

The conclusion? The LAN port on my computer is fried. Or so the tech thinks. I'm supposed to buy a PC/MCIA LAN card (more money down the rathole - I swear, proportionally speaking, this computer is worse than my house when I first bought it, in terms of being a money suck). Then I need to try that. If that doesn't work, I need to hire a tech.

(Wal-mart doesn't have PC/MCIA cards, or at least the gent on the phone at the store didn't think they did).

So, I guess I need to hire a tech anyway - to provide me with one of these elusive cards. (I am NOT driving to Sherman for a d----d computer part. That is ridiculous.)

I am really really really really really really really fed up with the cable company right now.

(Christa: local channels through DISH are not an option here. I had a friend who tried. The best they could do was give her the network "feeds" out of the East Coast. Not real helpful).

So, short answer: dialup slow but easy and seemingly reliable.
cable internet fast (allegedly) but ****-all to set up and, if the on and off properties of the lights on my cable modem are any indication, once I DO get it up, I should be prepared for the signal to drop out unpredictably about once every 15 minutes.

I guess the "no longer support dialup" means no more tech support, or it's going to go away at some amorphous time in the future. At least for now I have dialup still.

I love the internet but hate trying to get connected to it. It's too bad there's not some kind of organic internet connection, like some kind of plant that you could grow that could then pull in the signals. I think that would be considerably more successful for me.