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While I had no delusions at all that Verizon was the epitome of corporate evil, part of me always held out, thinking my opinion might be just a tad exaggerated.

Well, nope! Verizon’s CEO was interveiwed recently by the San Francisco chronicle, and their agenda is laid out in black and white:

The head of the country’s largest phone company ridiculed San Francisco’s interest in building a municipal Wi-Fi network that is designed to offer cheap or free Internet service throughout the city.

“That could be one of the dumbest ideas I’ve ever heard,” said Ivan Seidenberg, chief executive officer of Verizon Communications, during a meeting with Chronicle editors and writers on Friday

What, providing internet access is a dumb idea? Competing against the almighty Verizon is a dumb idea? For you it may be, but for quite a few people, competition is… well see, it’s the American Way, Ivan. This is kind of the equivalent of Barnes and Noble saying that public libraries are a stupid idea. Yet, they seem to co-exist just fine.

“Why in the world would you think your (cell) phone would work in your house?” he said.

Well gee Ivan… I kinda spend a lot of time in my house. You see, I kinda live there. And considering I spend so much time in two places – at home, and at work – I kinda thought it would make sense that if I pay a monthly charge for a service, it should at least work in the places where I live and work, and the points in between would be nice too. But hey! You’re right! I was sooo unrealistic in assuming that was reasonable. Silly me.

Last year, the California Public Utilities Commission ordered all phone companies to give customers 30 days to test a service without slapping them with hundreds of dollars in early cancellation fees. But after the PUC suspended the rule a month ago, Verizon shortened its trial period to 15 days to match its 15-day return policy in other states.

“We think there is a deal,” he said. “We invest in the business and have the best service. But when you sign up with us, we’d like you stay with us.”

Oh blast, Ivan’s right again. I shouldn’t have to have a reasonable trial period, because in Ivan’s all-knowing opinion, Verizon’s service is the best no matter what. And if it turns out it doesn’t work for me, well I was just expecting too much and being a bad, naughty customer with unrealistic expectations, and it’s all my fault, and I’m just screwed. How right you are, Ivan!

And now, all of you know why I go through such pains to make sure that I use services that compete with Verizon, and see to it that Verizon doesn’t get a dime from me.

Alas, the worst has happened.

A software company known for its bloated, over-priced, yet incredibly pervasive (and thus, required) software packages has purchased a software company known for its bloated, annoying, yet incredibly pervasive (and thus, required) software packages.

The result? most likely, even MORE expensive, MORE bloated, MORE annoying software that despite all its shortcomings everyone is using and therefore, to open/receive anything sent by anyone, you have to have it to. Nice.

God how I wish this was a bad April Fool’s joke.

Oh well. As of this writing, it would appear that Adobe’s website has just been crushed under the load the merger announcement has created, so at least there some small satisfaction in that.

Okay, so, the more net-savvy among you will understand my latest frustration with Comcast. There’s the ongoing DNS issue, which Comcast swears (really and truly this time) that everything is fixed. Though, hell if I’m actually going to try their DNS servers and find out for myself… the alternate list is working just fine thanks, and I intend to keep it that way.

The DNS issue did make the Washington Post though. Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone at Comcast gets fired soon over this one.

But now that that’s behind us, we hope, I have a new frustration. These geniuses can’t seem to route internet traffic correctly to save their lives!
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So, a week goes by and apparently Comcast STILL can’t fix their DNS server issue, to the point where it’s generating lots of press now. Rolling DNS resolution outages continue for Comcast users nationwide. Lovely.

Fortunately for me, I didn’t even realize the problems were continuing because I’m using other DNS nameservers than Comcast’s automatically-assigned (and faulty) ones.

If you are a Comcast user and are still having problems, then the issue may be fixed by switching to an alternative DNS nameserver. Doing this varies by operating system and/or home networking router configuration, so consult your manuals on how to do this with your setup. The gist is to disable any option that sounds similar to “Obtain DNS server automatically,” and instead enable the option to manually enter the IP addresses of one or more DNS servers (the more you can enter, the merrier). You will still be obtaining an IP address automatically from Comcast; that part won’t change… though I strongly recommend that you avoid rebooting your cable modem or router as much as possible until Comcast resovles their issues for good.

So, what DNS server can you use in place of Comcast’s? Quite a few, actually…

Some recommended DNS servers:
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Sprint is one step closer to the launch of its advanced high speed EV-DO network, promising speeds up to 2.4Mbps and possibly ushering in a period where cellular phone networks compete with other broadband internet service providers. Within the next week, Sprint will release what is known as Preferred Roaming List (PRL) 10027.

For those who are not CDMA-savvy, a PRL generally acts as a network map that is resident in the memory of every CDMA-based cell phone (in the US, that would be Sprint PCS, Verizon, Virgin Mobile, Alltel, and a few other carrier’s cell phones). Normally, this map provides information on which entworks are “home” networks, and which are “roaming” networks. Further, the PRL goes on to tell the phone which roaming networks it should try to make calls on first, based on who is giving the home carrier a better price at that particular time.

This new PRL, 10027, will go a step farther. It will add code which indicates to Sprint phones which of these networks are capable of 1xEV-DO data speeds, along with various other features. This is critical to the launch of high speed services, as the phone must know where it can and can’t use those higher data speeds.

Now, it’s important to realize that this is just one small step in launching EV-DO. Contrary to what some other Sprint-centric sites are reporting, this does not mean that Sprint is launching EV-DO tomorrow. Cell sites still need to be updated, phones need to be introduced to the market that can actually take advantage of the higher speeds, and of course, Sprint still has to decide how it wants to price the new sevice.