Thursday, July 10, 2008

Connected...

In chapter three of the never ending story of trying to get an internet connection in our apartment, we've had some success... at least partially. After hearing from Fastweb that Telecom Italia had told them that they couldn't activate a line in the apartment, we went directly to the Telecom and requested a line from them. That was then actually activated a week and a half later, giving us hope that our situation would soon be resolved. So last weekend we went to Vodafone, which had a good offer for DSL and phone service. Since they didn't have any of the hardware there at the moment, they said they'd call back, which they did yesterday. So Kristen went to pick up the DSL modem, though again a problem arose. Vodafone can't actually give us DSL service at the moment, since for some reason the Telecom is needed for the activation, and their site tells Vodafone that DSL isn't activated in our apartment. Of course, they offered us their own DSL service several times, and inserting our telephone number into their online site shows that it is available, so it's pretty clear that they're simply lying to us and Vodafone (as they did to Fastweb). If in the future anyone has any reason to get Italian phone or internet service, please boycott Telecom Italia at all costs!
Luckily, the people at Vodafone were quite helpful, and we now have internet via their cell phone service. It's the same price as DSL but has some limitations, such as having to sign in, having a maximum of 10 hours a day and not having quite the same speeds, though for now it's fine. If we can somehow convince or bribe the Telecom to allow us to have DSL, then we can switch over to their DSL service without any problems.

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