Digital Discontinuities and television via DSL?

The news is awash with tidings of Netflix channels via Comcast, is net neutrality dead or not dead, and flutterings about what upload or download speeds the public craves as opposed to what they get. RantWoman thinks that is all very well and not unimportant.

However, the world of RantWoman does not even yet get to all those magical numbers. The telecomm world of those around RantWoman is subject to rather different discontinuities, discountinuities that mean any transmission speed greater than zero is a near miracle.

RantWoman offers for the benefit of the world snapshots of 3 different efforts to assemble the right onramps to the information superhighway for individual customers' needs. Data was collected at or inconnection wiht the Friendly Neighborhood Center for Extreme Computing:

Customer # 1:  needs to call a cellphone number in a rural area of a SE Asian country. Would prefer options cheaper and with more staying power than phone cards. Exact elements of customer service included:

    --Brainstorming over multiple potlucks

    --emails in English sufficiently turgid to fry the brains of several native English speakers, never mind the main customer and then conversations sufficient to chill out the source of VoIP research enough for multiple other people to test what the family wants.

   --Yes, it DOES matter on some plans whether the destination phone is a landline or a cell though luckily not the service already at the top of the options list.

    --Did RantWoman mention really good food including special items for the new year?

    --Chatter and digressions about home internet access including Comcast and an iPad and shared interests as far as content consumption.

    --Double-checking back and forth between English and another language so everyone understood the needed steps and what we THOUGHT based on the info sheet available.

  --Did RantWoman mention acres of tiny print, tiny print rendered in a grey so pale it's almost in RantWoman's into the fog range anyway?

  --Multiple calls over several days to customer service, customer service trying to sell an unwanted cellphone and various iterations aimed at exactly what is needed.

  --HOPEFULLY a successful phone call home.

Customer #2: bought an iPad at Wallmart. Did not realize the iPad is Wifi-only. Has both a cellphone and a land line. RantWoman is SO happy not to have to scrape either eyeballs or Mr. JAWS over the vast maze of offers on the website, so happy to  help have an online text chat with cell provider:

---Customer can pay $20 more / month for a gizmo that would give her Wi-Fi anywhere.

--Customer can decide to do nothing until next time she has a way to get to Wal-Mart and then exchange iPad for a 3g/ 4G model.

--Customer can become interested enough in the locations of neary Wifi, give up on dream of using iPad at home, and roll about for free. This option had NO appeal.

Customer was unhappy about her telecommunications options but seemed to have an enjoyable social experience. Score one for Building Community.

Customer #3 wants cable. Customer has already called the cable company and determined that the second cheapest plan will suit her and her son's taste in sports very well thank you very much.

But there is some question of a deposit. Turns out there is question of a deposit, but the precise nature of the question lurks behind some gauntlet of voicemail hell  thresholds. RantWoman interacts a couple times. The customer interacts a couple of times. The dollar amount of the deposit at least becomes reasonable. Then it's time to PAY the deposit. The customer wants to...pay in cash.

Turns out this vast corporate entity that wants to be in everyone's living rooms is almost completely unable to accept cash, and onsite in darned few neighborhoods.. There are three places in central Puget sound where one can pay deposits in cash. All of these sites are at least 3 buses away from customer. Whatever happened to neighborhood presence?

Never mind. Customer reviewed the monthly charges, coyly offered without full lsting of the inevitable taxes and fees. Customer decided that a whole month worth of sports for her son is far out of her financial reach and decided to....revert to some antenna which had quit working sometime after it came from Sears.

Customer said antenna had originally come from Sears so RantWoman dutifully dug up the phone number, oops, excuse us the portal to more voice mail hell. Between RantWoman and customer we discovered several paths through voicemail hell to the electronics department. Then we discovered voice mail, but not a live human. Then we retraced our steps and found another path in the menus. Then more voicemail.

RantWoman actually seems to have suppressed any recollection of whether the customer emerged with anything more definite than the outgoing message's promise of a return phone call. RantWoman does recall that customer also says she has DSL. So if RantWoman were thinking with all of her brain cells instead of under the foggy thrall of the small ways her work efforts from the cable franchise fees, RantWoman MIGHT be able to point out some ways to watch the desired content via DSL.

RantWoman Might be able to do this but no guarantees. RantWoman does not watch television and still less sports! Sorry customer, if you want real bargains, will the antenna thingie do it?