A couple of Wednesdays ago

in this space, I asked, "Who's up to wiring Fayette for high-speed,

broadband Internet connectivity?"

Broadband is tech-talk for

pushing loads of electronic information through one wire at speeds many

times faster than you get with a little phone modem. Right now, the digital

race nationally is between two kinds of broadband: cable, through the

wire that brings in your cable TV programs, and DSL, an access method

that uses your regular phone line.

With the nation in the midst

of an Internet-driven economic revolution, I proposed two candidates:

the local EMC and local governments. I said that the monopoly cable company

serving most of Fayette County's residential and business areas was moving

with glacial slowness. AT&T, even shorn of its baby Bells, still seems

monolithic and ponderous. When will we ever get it, and what will the

service be like when we finally do get it?

It took a headline in this

paper "County to AT&T: Cable service stinks" to get some

suits' attention at north Atlanta headquarters about mounting customer

service problems. The jury is still way out on whether a bunch of vice

presidents promising to do better will really mean better responsiveness

to customer complaints.

Some may have wondered why

I left out another company that runs wires to most Fayette homes BellSouth.

Herein lies a sad, instructive

tale in big business, bad customer service and just plain monopoly obstructionism.

Back in June, Internet provider

Earthlink/Mindspring offered a residential hookup to something called

DSL (digital subscriber line), a much faster way to access the World Wide

Web and other services using a phone line already installed in a home.

I called the 800 number and

descended into DSL Never-Never Land.

I was supposed to get a "self-installation

kit" within two weeks, and my new DSL service was supposed to be

up within a month of my call. Seemed like a long time in installing high-speed

access, but all I have now is a dial-up account, so I sprung for it.

A DSL modem was supposed to

arrive as soon as my local phone provider BellSouth "provisioned"

the line to accommodate the new service. That's where I remain three months

later: Un-modemed, unprovisioned and unhappy, with no one taking responsibility

for the unreasonable delay.

You have to call Earthlink

customer service, wait on hold for count it 25 to 40 minutes. Then customer

service tells you they don't handle DSL; Earthlink DSL has a special number

reachable only after waiting through the regular customer service cycle.

After another 10-to-20-minute wait, Earthlink tells you, "Oh, golly,

that order hasn't gone through. BellSouth turned down our request for

provisioning."

No notification to me from

Earthlink or BellSouth about the problem. I had to make the call.

So, then the customer service

circus starts with BellSouth. After a long hold, a residential account

representative tells me there's a problem with the listed name on the

number to be provisioned.

I explain: I've been paying

the bill on that number at my Peachtree City address for seven years;

its listing was for my daughter, who hasn't lived at my house in more

than five years.

Well, that's the problem. She

moved back into the area recently and applied for service at her new address.

That was the glitch, the customer service rep assured me.

Understand now, the "glitch"

hadn't stopped the monthly bill from arriving and being paid promptly

getting new service at her new residence last month, and paying for it.

The "glitch" just stopped my DSL service from another vendor,

a vendor other than BellSouth, which is marketing its own DSL service.

So, I got the listing changed

to my wife's name, and was assured that all problems were solved. So I

waited again, for three weeks this time. Still nothing.

So I called Earthlink back

and went through the interminable hold again. What's the status of my

DSL request? I asked after another 30-minute wait with Vivaldi playing

from my speakerphone.

Oops. No one has requested

another provisioning. We'll take care of that right away. Suspicious by

now, I wait only a week and call BellSouth. Another wait. Another transfer

to another department where the recorded message informs me that all BellSouth

DSL service in Georgia is unaccountably off-line. They are trying to find

out why and will post new recordings as they get more information.

I finally get a BellSouth DSL

technician. Have you provisioned my line? I ask. Oops, I can't access

that number or your account. No provisioning has been done.

And that's where I sit today

in prestigious Fayette: strung out between two giant corporations whose

cracks so many of us fall through, and who just don't seem to care whether

there are cracks or not.

I may eventually call BellSouth

again, to find out why they have screwed up my provisioning request yet

again. But, honestly, I have no feeling that 20 more calls times 30 more

minutes waiting for each will get them straightened out.

Earthlink (and other DSL vendors)

blame BellSouth (and other primary residential telephone service providers)

for being the bottleneck. They contend BellSouth has no interest in provisioning

their lines for other vendors' DSL resales. Even the BellSouth DSL technician

admitted that provisioning could take up to six weeks after a request

is made.

Such a business policy would

probably violate all kinds of F.C.C. and Georgia Public Service Commission

rules, but what could prove that the phone company is deliberately dragging

its feet on provisioning? A class-action lawsuit?

As far as I'm concerned about

Earthlink and BellSouth, a plague on both their houses. I guess I'll keep

paying my regularly arriving bills. And I'll keep dialing up on my 56K

modem and keep getting knocked off-line every 15 minutes for "inactivity"

Who cares if Fayette households

and businesses get wired to the high-speed, Internet revolution? BellSouth

and Earthlink apparently have other matters on their corporate minds.

Cable provider AT&T makes promises and proceeds with the speed of

global warming (or cooling, depending on which scenario of the week is

in vogue).

And an item in the Atlanta

Business Chronicle casually reports that Convergent Services LLC has moved

into Newnan Lofts over in neighboring Coweta County to provide "businesses

[with] a complete Internet service without having to invest in hardware,

equipment and professional staff." The high-speed Internet access

for that clean, high-tech business, of course, is provided by Newnan Utilities'

fiber optics network, a city-owned and city-installed system 10 miles

west of our Fayette and Peachtree City borders.

Do you think that people living

in Fayette might soon suffer from a broadband gap, affecting their livelihoods

and their ability to compete in business, while other counties and cities

see the future and begin to act on that vision, to the benefit of their

residents?

Do you think that might affect

the prosperity of those still choosing to live in Fayette? Might we become

an electronic backwater, stuck with 40 channels of bad TV and ancient

dial-up modems?

Well, we'll still have our

golf cart paths. And we can retire from competition.