BY RICH TEHRANI
Group Publisher

Cable Telephony Envy

Many years ago, I heard an expression I would never forget: "Eating your own dog food." The expression was used in reference to a major computer company that was about to switch all of its internal e-mail servers to software they had developed. Until then, the company in question was taking a lot of flak for not having faith in its own products. Since then, I've heard the expression "Eating your own cooking." referring to the same concept, but the former quote will always be my favorite.

After at least six months of cable telephony availability in southwestern Connecticut, I decided it was time to eat my own dog food and try it out in my home. I'd avoided it so far because I dread dealing with service provider installation departments because their service is typically so poor. My initial experience with Cablevision and their @Home service was no exception. I ordered the broadband service, and was told to wait patiently in my home during a three to four hour window in which the cable modem installer might arrive. As usual, the service provider's time is considered more valuable than their customer's.

Because I work close to home, I requested that I be contacted at work 15 minutes prior to the cable modem installers arrival so that I could then get home in time to meet him. I even called to confirm this arrangement on the day of the installation. No such luck: The scheduled install time came and went without me being notified. After calling Cablevision to find out what happened, I was told that no one was home when the cable modem installer arrived at my house. When asked why I didn't receive my call 15 minutes in advance, the operator had no clue as to what I was talking about. Another bloated monopoly with customer service rivaling that of the largest of monopolies. It seems phone companies have little to fear from cable telephony, as I had thought.

But I still wanted to at least try that dog food. I rescheduled and two weeks later, in the early morning, a technician arrived at my house 15 minutes early, informing me that he was there to ready my computer for its journey into broadband Internet access. I was really excited and stopped eating breakfast to partake in the install procedure.

In about 15 minutes, the technician told me I was all set. He left my home and the cable modem installer arrived moments later. About two hours after that, the friendly installer had outfitted my house with a wonderful cable modem and told me I was ready to go. It wasn't that simple: The Winsock Proxy client on my laptop was enabled (this is how I access our corporate network), and it stopped me from getting online. A quick call to tech support coupled with my own troubleshooting was all it took for me to have Internet access rivaling the TMC T1 I've come to appreciate.

Between you and me, I don't really like to work at home. I do my best work in the office. So I forgot about my wonderful cable modem for a few days -- perhaps even a week -- until my next business trip forced me to send some last minute e-mail the night before my flight. Arriving home at about 10:30 P.M. and plugging in my trusty laptop into the cable modem yielded continuous error messages on my browser and e-mail client. I just wasn't connecting to the Internet. Coincidentally, the same night, my regular phone line picked up a mysterious buzzing sound.

First, I tackled the phone, since my home phone (just like at work) is more important than my data. Using SNET's IVR system, I quickly and easily alerted SNET that my line had noise on it. I was told to expect a repair in three days.

On to my next problem: After an hour of my own unsuccessful troubleshooting, I called @Home's tech support. Luckily, I have a second line in my home (which works fine) that was just what the doctor ordered. I was greeted by a very friendly @Home agent who offered to call me back to save me long distance charges while I waited for a technician (now we're talking service). At about 12:30 A.M. a helpful technician explained to me that the @Home DHCP server doesn't always work correctly -- especially when a laptop had been connected to another DHCP server (in this case the TMC server). He walked me through hard-coding my IP address and DNS information. After 15 minutes on the phone, I was up and running.

The irony of course is that we all talk about how reliable telephony is compared to datacom and cable -- the day I decide to use my cable modem, my phone line becomes all but unusable. I am still waiting for SNET to fix my phone line -- they tell me the buzzing is coming from within my house. Soon, I'll meet with the SNET repair tech and hopefully eliminate the offensive noise. Of course, I can't help but think it's probably just a simple case of cable telephony envy.

Rich Tehrani welcomes comments at rtehrani@tmcnet.com.