Gee, thanks phone company

Today's post is a guest post from another techie and good friend of mine, Scott Janson. Scott posted a small blurb on what you are about to read on Facebook and I asked him to turn it into a full-fledged blog post. I hope you'll enjoy reading what other techies besides me sometimes think of technology companies.

I recently decided to move my digital television, dial-up phone and broadband services from my local telephone provider and satellite provider (everyone involved will remain nameless - for arguments sake, let's just call the telco "XY&Z") to my local cable company. The cable company's bundled services were simply too good a deal to pass up. Obviously, since I was moving to cable-based Internet service, I no longer had a need for XY&Z's DSL service (I know, DSL is slow, DSL stinks, blah, blah, blah...when I signed on with the satellite provider, cable based broadband without TV service was cost prohibitive. Focus people!).

A few days after canceling my DSL and phone service I received a letter from XY&Z. The letter informed me that, as a courtesy, my email account and dial-up access would continue to be valid for the next 60 days. I thought, "How nice...wait, what?". Now, I get the part about the email account access. There are those out there who continue to use their provider based email accounts (I'm not sure why - but hey, to each his own). And those same folks probably have a need to clean out their account, forward their new email address to their contacts, etc.

But dial up access?

This really threw me for a loop. I'm sure that at some point, way back when, XY&Z probably told me that dial-up access was included with DSL service. And I probably ignored every word of it. I mean, it's 2009. Who uses dial-up access? I own six working computers...I don't think any of them have a working modem attached/installed. Sure, just like every computer junkie out there, I have a big Tupperware bin full of old cables, keyboards and connectors. And there's probably a modem in there somewhere. But it would never occur to me to find it, plug it in and configure it upon canceling my high speed Internet service. If I really need to get on the Internet that badly in between ISPs I'm just going to take one of these laptops to the nearest coffee shop or book store with wi-fi... there are plenty to choose from.

So thanks XY&Z. As a thank you for my years of prompt payments and subscriptions, my parting gift is two months worth of a service that is completely useless to me. I'm going to go watch television now. I think the satellite provider gave me 60 days of over the air, analog TV service.

Scott is a technical analyst and development team lead (specializing in web development and service oriented architecture and design) for an industry leading student loan and financial services provider. Scott is a long time friend and former colleague of Mr. Noobie. In his spare time Scott enjoys watching sports, playing golf and researching/tinkering with all things technical. Scott can be reached at .