[mdlug] AT&T DSL -- ity, bitty rant

[Robert Citek]

I just had AT&T DSL installed in my house.  What was different is that
I got the dry-loop, the kind that does not require phone service nor
do I need the filters as the jacks wouldn't be used for phones.  The
house was wired via a line splitter to go to three jacks in the house,
one in each of three rooms: kitchen, family room, and master bedroom.
The line splitter is in the basement and was not the modular kind but
rather the old screw-post kind.  What amazes me is that the tech from
AT&T cut the wires to all the jacks and then connected the kitchen
wires to the incoming line with wire connectors.  And not the screw
kind connectors, but the crimp kind.  Unlike the other jacks in the
house, the kitchen jack is a mounted at about shoulder level on a bare
wall with no shelf nor counter nor power outlet.  So now I have a
phone cable snaking across the wall and wall edges to the closest
power outlet about 15 feet away in the dining room instead of
someplace less conspicuous, e.g. the family room next to the
entertainment system.

Sure, I could go in the basement, splice cable, and rewire things the
way they should be, but I shouldn't have to.  That's like going to a
restaurant expecting good service and food, getting served a
half-baked chicken pot pie, and having to take the pie back into the
kitchen to finish baking it myself.

What's odd is that I have had AT&T DSL in the past.  Never had an
issue.  At that time I also had phone service on the same line, so
cutting wires wouldn't make sense.

Why would the AT&T tech cut the wires to the other rooms?  And if he
had to cut wires and had to choose, why didn't he ask me (I was in the
house the entire time)?  And if he would not ask, why keep the wires
live that lead to the most inconvenient place to put a DSL modem?

Mind boggling.

Regards,
- Robert