"The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transition to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future, or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain."

The quote above was spoken by Citizen G'Kar in the Babylon 5 episode " Z'ha'dum." After upgrading my Internet service from EarthLink dial-up to AT&T DSL, I know exactly what he was talking about.

If you're going though this, or know someone who is going through this, you may not want to relive the pain by reading this article. If you're merely looking for solutions, see my other articles in this issue, " AT&T Internet for Windows 2000" and " One Email Address For Life."

I want to make this clear: everything described below is absolutely true. I didn't make anything up, nor did I exaggerate any part of it. I've added some comments as I went along, but the events transpired exactly as described here.

Thursday, 21 June 2001
I was watching Friends that evening when the doorbell rang. Fortunately it was a rerun, otherwise I probably would have gotten testy with the guy at the door. I have no patience for people who call or approach me, trying to sell something. If I want your product, I know where to find you. (Or if I don't know where to find you, then you need to reexamine your marketing strategy.)

The caller wore a shirt with an AT&T logo. After introducing himself, he explained that AT&T was upgrading my neighborhood to digital broadband, so I shouldn't be alarmed if I see AT&T workers moving between and behind houses.

Then he mentioned that I could upgrade my phone service to digital broadband, if I wished. I'd get the quality of a digital signal, and could also upgrade to high-speed Internet for up to five computers in the house. He showed me the price, which was quite impressive. We have two phone lines in our house, and I could see that the monthly cost for the two lines – plus the high-speed Internet, which was another $35 per month – would be cheaper than we're paying right now for just one phone line. Plus, installation and the first month of service were free. How could I say no? We scheduled the installation to occur in two weeks.

The high-speed Internet wasn't really a big deal. I don't do that much downloading, mostly check email and read newsgroups. But my wife and I often need to be online at the same time and we couldn't do that with our dial-up service. With AT&T Internet, we'd both be online all the time.

I'd also like to mention that I had been completely happy with my Internet provider. I signed up with Mindspring a few years ago, then they were bought out by EarthLink. In my years with Mindspring/EarthLink, I had only a couple of small problems. Each problem was resolved with a 10-minute call to customer service. I have no complaints about EarthLink.

Thursday, 05 July 2001
Around 8am, I received a call from AT&T saying that the guys who were coming to do the install were running a little late, but would be there around 9:00 or so. I was impressed with customer service at this point, keeping me informed.

The workers showed up around 9:30 and found a spot on my roof where the signal was strong. After getting my approval, they installed the antenna there and installed a box inside the house. By noon, they had both of our phone lines switched over to AT&T. He made a call to each line to verify it was working.

As he prepared to leave, I asked about our Internet connection. He handed me two network adapters with USB connections. I asked if the instructions were in the box, and he nodded. "It's very plug-and-play," he said. "Just plug it in and go."

Excellent. I was excited about the opportunity to upgrade my Internet connection.

I quickly ran into a problem, though. The network adapter installed fine, loading the appropriate USB driver from the CD. But the adapter didn't seem to be able to see the network. After fooling around with it a bit, I decided to call customer service.

And that was my first problem: I couldn't find a number for customer service. There was a number on the back of the manual, though. It didn't sound like it was the right number to call, but I dialed the number, hoping they could tell me the number I needed.

And they did – the phone number for AT&T Digital Broadband Customer Service was 888-533-6000. I called the number and worked through the voice prompts. I soon got connected with a person, who told me that they couldn't help me. "You need to call 800-888-7600," I was told.

"No, I can't help you," I was told when I finally got to a person. "You need to call 888-262-6300."

With a sigh, I dialed that number. "Thank you for calling AT&T @Home," an automated voice told me. "Your residence is not yet AT&T @Home ready." Then the call disconnected. No help there. I called back to the previous number, and was told to try AT&T @Home at 888-824-8413.

I called the AT&T @Home number and was told "You need to call AT&T Worldnet, at 800-400-1447."

So I called the Worldnet number. The customer service rep was quite apologetic as she explained that she couldn't help me. "You need to call 888-533-6000."

Sound familiar? Yep, that was the first phone number that I had been given. "I already called them," I said. "They said they couldn't help me." But I knew it wouldn't do any good to argue with her. I decided to give it a try.

This time, I got connected to someone who tried to help me. I'm not sure what happened the first time – maybe I made a bad response to one of the "Press 1 for this, press 2 for that" prompts. Even if that was the case, though, why couldn't they just transfer me over to the right person?

"What operating system are you using?" the support rep asked.

I replied, "Windows 2000."

"We don't support Windows 2000. I can't help you."

Oh, good. I've spent almost three hours on the phone, and talked to every department within AT&T, to find out that the whole thing was a waste. "So, I can't use AT&T Internet with Windows 2000?"

"Well, it can be done. But you have to configure it manually." Ah, so there was hope!

I asked, "Are there any instructions for configuring it manually?"

"Yes, go to this web site: adbwork.home.att.net. It's not an AT&T site, but they have instructions there."

All right, then! I thanked him, and plugged in my old modem. Apparently I wasn't finished with EarthLink just yet.

But now there was a new problem – I couldn't get connected to EarthLink. I went into my modem options and turned on the speaker, so that I could hear what was happening. "I'm sorry" the voice came from the speaker. "You must first dial a 1 when calling that number." So, my EarthLink dial-in number, which had been a local call for years, was now a long-distance call.

I tried some of the other numbers I had, which had been local calls. Most were now long-distance, but one was still local. (I've since determined that some 713 numbers, some 281 numbers and some 832 numbers are long distance, and some are local. I haven't seen any pattern to it, though. I never know, until I dial a number, if I'm going to need the 1 or not.)

I put in the new number and dialed. I connected at 14.4, even though this was supposed to be a 56K connection. Not good.

Then I typed in the web site address and got "Error 404: Not Found." Did I write it down wrong? By now it was after 5pm and I was tired of fighting with AT&T. I gave up for the day.

During the evening, I discovered I had yet another problem: my dial-up would only stay connected for 10 minutes at a time, then would disconnect. Very annoying, especially when I tried to get online to Battle.net to play Diablo II with a friend. I did reconnect after the first few drops, hoping maybe the problem would go away. It didn't.

Friday, 06 July 2001
I tried the AT&T connection again, hoping that angels had fixed the problem while I slept. No, still can't see the network. I called customer service again.

This time, I got connected to someone who was willing to talk to me. He told me that they don't support Windows 2000, but he might be able to help me anyway. He told me to go into Device Manager and tell him if I saw the network adapter listed there. I went down to the USB controllers section and looked, but I didn't see it. The rep put me on hold to check on something.

As I studied the list, I got an idea. Under USB controllers was an entry called Generic USB Hub. I had installed a 4-port hub last week since I didn't have any free USB ports and I knew I'd need one for my AT&T Internet connection. I had plugged the network adapter into the hub. My CD writer and Palm HotSync cradle, also plugged into the hub, were working fine. But maybe the network adapter needed to be plugged directly into the PC. Worth a shot, anyway. While I was still on hold, I unplugged the network adapter from the port and plugged it into the back of the PC.

Success! The adapter could now see the network! I decided to start the next part of the install process while I was still on hold.

The install started OK, then an error message came up: "This software only works on Windows 95/98/Me. Click OK to exit Install." I clicked OK, and the program ended. It simply refused to install.

"Yes, we don't support Windows 2000," the rep confirmed again when he got back on the phone. There was nothing more he could do for me.

I wasn't willing to give up yet. Windows 2000 has been out for over a year – surely I wasn't the only AT&T customer using it. The truth must be out there, somewhere. I just had to find it.

Web searches are frustrating when your connection drops every 10 minutes. Finally, I couldn't stand it any more. I called customer service again, this time to see if something could be done about the problems I'm having with dial-up. "You're on a digital line now," the rep explained. "You need to disable V.90 on your modem. It's an AT command, you need to go to your modem vendor's web site to look up the exact AT string for it."

For some reason, I felt compelled to ask, "So, is it true that there's no way to use the AT&T high-speed Internet with Windows 2000?"

"No, that's not true," he said. "You just have to set up the configuration yourself. You can find instructions on this web site: adbwork.home.att.net."

That was the same web site I had tried yesterday. But I happened to be dialed in to EarthLink as I was talking to him this time, so I typed the address into my browser. This time, the site came up! "The AT&T Digital Broadband (ADB) Users' WORK Site is dedicated to providing ADB customers with the very best information available about ADB service." Not only that, but on the left side of the page was a link that read "Setup: W2K, NT, Linux."

Aha! This is what I needed. I thanked the customer service rep and started digging through the web site. Then I dialed in again, because my Internet connection had dropped again.

The instructions were confusing, but I finally got the connection set up. Then I ran into yet another problem: I needed an AT&T login ID and password. This is probably something that the install software handles, but of course that software won't run on my computer. Somehow I need to get an account set up.

I called customer service again and explained the problem. "We don't support Windows 2000," I was told. Yes, I know that. That's not the problem. I just need to set up an account on your network. She gave me a web site: https://registration.att.net. The URL took me to the AT&T WorldNet Service Registration site. The first screen asked for the nine-character registration code, which I found in the instructions that came with the network adapter. I entered the code and was taken to a form where I could fill in my name, phone number and other information.

I submitted the information requested, then a new screen came up giving my network and email Ids and passwords, and other information that I would need to get connected. I printed out the information, then disconnected from the EarthLink dial-up.

I double-clicked on the icon I had created to make the AT&T connection. I filled in the User ID and Password and clicked the Connect button.

Seconds later, a message popped up saying that I was connected. Could it be true? Had I finally succeeded? I pulled up Internet Explorer and found that I could surf the web.

I brought up Outlook and entered the new settings for retrieving email from my AT&T account. I sent and received test messages, everything worked fine. Then I brought Agent and entered the settings for the AT&T Usenet server and found that I could read Usenet messages. Everything seemed to be working fine.

With a new ISP, I have a new email address. But since I've been using Pobox.com, I don't have to tell anyone about that new address. I went to www.pobox.com and updated my record so that email sent to my public address would be forwarded to my new AT&T email address. (See my article "One Email Address For Life," also in this issue..)

Of course, the real test came that evening when I went online to play Diablo II. Intent on a thorough test, I played online for about 3 hours.

Friday, 27 July 27 2001
Looking back, was it worth it? It's certainly nice to have the high-speed connection, and life is easier now that my wife and I can be online at the same time.

I don't understand why it was such a struggle to get online, though. Or why, in July 2001, AT&T's mantra is still "We don't support Windows 2000."

Even if they don't want to update their install software to handle a year-old operating system, they could probably save a lot of expense by including printed instructions for installing on a Windows 2000 PC. If you look at how many phone calls I made to toll-free numbers, and how long I spent talking to various reps (or on hold), you can see that they probably spent quite a bit of money in the process of not giving me much support.

Multiply that by all the potential customers who are using Windows 2000, and I think they could save a lot of money by including a sheet with instructions for installing on Windows 2000.

But now that it is working, I really like the service. It is fast, and much more convenient than our previous dial-up connection. Assuming that our connection stays up, I'd say that this is a success.

Sunday, 29 July 2001
I had thought that this article was finished. However, this morning we found that we have no dial tone on either phone line. If we use the cell phone to call our phone numbers, we just hear a fast busy signal. However, our Internet connection still works.

I called customer service. After having me do some troubleshooting, she gave me a trouble ticket number and told me that I should hear something within 2 hours.

I never did hear back from them, but both phone lines were working about 5 hours later. I don't know what the problem was, and I didn't get a call to confirm that they were working. I just picked up the handset occasionally to check and eventually found that I had a dial tone again. The next day, an AT&T technician called to verify that the phones were working.

For now, I have to end this article. If I continue to have entertaining adventures in my attempt to connect to the Internet – or the phone system – I'll follow up with another article.