Speaking of underpromising and overdelivering, we thought we'd fill you in on the latest developments in our dead AirPort Base Station saga. When last you tuned in on Monday, our Base Station had decided that infinite rebooting was a valid alternative lifestyle, thus rendering your AtAT staff wirelessless until the confused unit could be replaced. (We think we've borne up remarkably well under the strain.) Back on Monday, the Apple tech to whom we spoke told us to expect a replacement ABS by the end of the week, which we considered to be perfectly reasonable (though the prospect of being tethered to a hub for four days left us in a cold sweat).

However, when we returned to the AtAT studios on Tuesday, we discovered that Airborne Express had already attempted to deliver a package from Apple Computer. Yes, folks, our replacement had actually been sent via overnight delivery. Had we been there to sign for the package, our wireless utopia would have been restored the day after our original ABS went loopy on us. Now that's service! We've encountered this phenomenon before, on a number of occasions; Apple Support claims we'll have something in three to five business days, and it's sitting on the doorstep the very next day. And yet, no matter how many times it happens, we're always pleasantly surprised.

We should also mention that, at least in our experience, Apple's quintessential ease of use continues to shine through. Whereas our original installation of an AirPort card and Base Station (from breaking the shrinkwrap on the boxes to surfing the 'net wirelessly) took less than fifteen minutes (yes, we had a stopwatch running), we replaced our nuked ABS with Apple's replacement and configured it for our network entirely during a single commercial break. No joke! We surfing wirelessly by the time That '70s Show was back on.

The next step is to send the faulty ABS back to Apple, but even that's so easy it hurts. We didn't even have to affix a shipping label; Apple uses an AirBorne Express service called "EZ Return," where the prepaid return address label cleverly hides underneath the existing label. One quick peel later, and bickety-bam-- there was our return box, good to go. We scheduled a pickup with one brief toll-free call to AirBorne, and that's pretty much that.

Since the whole process was so fast and easy, we spent a little time typing up a summary of the problem and included URLs for the Apple Support forum thread (which illustrates just how widespread the failing Base Station problem is) and Constantin von Wentzel's fix for the problem. Who knows? Since the problem is pretty clearly due to a design flaw, maybe Apple will set up a program by which faulty Base Stations will be replaced regardless of their warranty status.

Or maybe the support techs will just keep telling afflicted owners of out-of-warranty Base Stations to tune in to AtAT for links to a fix-- at least, that's what happened to faithful viewer Patrick Cranston. While we'd rather see a repair extension program, it's nice to hear that the tech support staff is tuning in. (Hi, folks! Thanks for the snappy service!) In any case, we're wireless again, and the elapsed time from the onset of the problem to the fix was a mere 60 hours-- and it would have been more like 30, had we been available to sign for the shipment on Tuesday. Say what you like about Apple Support, but this was one impressive turn of events. Ahhh... surfing from the couch...