It's always sad when an apparent victory turns into a devastating loss. You will all probably recall a lone Mac user's valiant struggle to change Bell Atlantic's boneheaded policy of not supporting any non-iMac Macs for its high-speed ADSL Internet access. Steve Godun noticed that a Pentium-based computer or an iMac was required, and thus began his heroic saga to purchase ADSL service for his Power Computing Mac clone, which, from an ADSL network connection standpoint, was functionally equivalent to an iMac, but which Bell Atlantic staunchly refused to support. If you'd like to read the whole story, it's available at the MacInTouch site, but be forewarned-- Mr. Godun's willingness to brave the depths of stupidity and bureaucracy of the modern large corporation are not for the faint of heart nor the short on time. He makes Aeneas and Odysseus look like lightweights.

To bring you up to speed, here's the story in a nutshell: Steve was given several run-arounds and talked to about a kajillion different Bell Atlantic representatives, none of whom was able to provide a good reason why they refused to take his money just because his Mac wasn't translucent. Eventually, it seemed that he'd won the day, and the Mac populace rejoiced in victory when Bell Atlantic updated their web site to claim that they expected to be able to support all Macs-- not just iMacs-- in mid-February, at which time they planned to have software available that would enable Mac users to determine their computer's hardware Ethernet address. (Never mind that several pieces of software already let Mac users do this-- a point which Steve had shouted several times and which had evidently fallen on deaf ears.) Anyway, with their public declaration of imminent support for the Mac, it seemed that one more battle against ignorance and irrational anti-Mac sentiment had been vanquished.

But apparently one should never underestimate the potential depths of ignorance. Mid-February has come and gone, and Mr. Godun is still without ADSL service. And, as detailed in the closing chapters of his saga, he has attempted dozens of times to contact various people he had spoken to within the Bell Atlantic ranks, and all of them have refused to return his calls. When speaking to yet another new contact at the company, he was told that there was "no projected announcement" regarding Mac ADSL support, despite the mid-February date quoted on the web site. So Steve's giving up; he plans to wait for a different company to offer ADSL service in his area, while he also switches his phone service to another carrier. And what's so absurd, of course, is that at any time, Bell Atlantic could have taken Steve's money, come over, and installed the line. There is literally no technical reason why they couldn't have done this. But apparently money that's been touched by a Mac user is for some reason not welcome in Bell Atlantic's pockets. After all, Bell Atlantic could simply state, "We support any computer provided you give us the hardware Ethernet address in advance. Here are some links to software for various platforms that will let you determine this required value." Truly bizarre...