I have been in my “new” home for less than a week. It is new to me, but it was built just after WWII. Nice solid construction, but the wiring is somewhat irregular and none of the wall sockets are grounded. Needless to say, I have been buying lots of adapters just so I could plug in my equipment. While I have never been much of a handyman, I suspect I will be improving my skills over the next few months.

In my new town, with a population of about 17,000 people, I had a choice between two local phone companies. I went with the underdog, a small local company that offered a nice package that included my telephone service, cable TV, and a cable modem. After four years of dial-up service, I was looking forward to high bandwidth again.

This weekend, people had problems reaching us by telephone. Most of the time when people called our number, they got some other business that was closed for the weekend. Other times, they reached us. I tried to call my phone company, but they are not available until Monday morning. Strike one for the underdog.

Sunday afternoon, I tried to keep my kids busy with the electronic babysitter while my wife and I unpacked. The cable TV was out. So instead of unpacking, I played in the yard with my kids. That wasn’t all bad, but I was growing disillusioned with my telephone/cable company. I met a neighbor who informed me that cable was out for the entire neighborhood. Strike two for the underdog.

Sunday evening, after the kids were asleep, I was looking forward to finally posting again at Solport. I answered some of the emails that have accumulated and was about to post when my cable modem service stopped working. Strike three for the underdog.

I am going to have an, uh, interesting conversation with the underdog as soon as possible. I suspect I will be moving to satellite television and to the other telephone company. Since the underdog is the only game in town for a cable modem, I may give them one more chance on this. Otherwise, I could learn to like DSL (which the other firm provides).

The cable ISP outage only lasted about an hour, so I can post. It was my choice to move to a small town. I have done so before and I enjoy the benefits of small town America. But I do not associate bad service with small town America and hope this media company is just having a bad week. If this is indicative of their normal service, I do not see how they will stay in business since alternatives are available for most of their offerings.