There is a deep anger brewing inside me right now against GVTC, the communications company which provides DSL to po-dunk Red Rock, TX. Our original service was dial-up and we went through Bluebonnet Electric. That first connection might have been slow, but compared to both DirecWay and GVTC DSL, it was more reliable, kept a constant albeit crappy download and upload speed and didn’t disconnect sporadically whenever you use the internet. Right now, my DSL connection stands for “Dial-up Sucks Less”(TM) because its about as reliable as a crack addict who needs to buy drugs or pay for his rent.

You are probably wondering why I haven’t done anything about this. To be frank, I don’t know what I can do besides get my dad to call GVTC because its in his name. My suspicion is that GVTC is trying to serve more customers out here than our phone lines are built for. So you have to ask, if they cannot properly supply their customers with the connection they have promised (120kbps D/L, 30-50kbps U/L), then they shouldn’t be offering the service to us.

Linksys told my dad’s office assistant that its the router’s firmware that needs to upgraded because that is what is “disconnecting” the modem. Sorry to spoil their party, but the DSL modem disconnects regardless of whether it is directly connected to one machine or if it is run to the router (WRT54GX2 SRX 2). Its a good thing for Linksys that their hardware is working, but for Paradyne and GVTC…there are some issues that really need to be worked out.

It should be noted that the modem also disconnects and/or slows down during certain periods of the day. Also, this “issue” is fairly recent, it has only been occurring for a month and a half or so, but as of late its has gotten worse: pages take close to 1 minute to load, downloads and uploads are significantly slower and the most annoying of them all is the lag with IRC reaching 200s. Thats not a typo.

My surfing experience has been nothing far from nightmarish since this began. And GVTC…if by chance you read this, it would be appreciated if you fixed the DSL problem in Red Rock, TX or don’t offer us your service. Or better yet, Time Warner, if you are reading this, please run your fabulous cable out here, we have enough people now for you to make a profit.

</rant>