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COPYRIGHT 2001 The Miami Herald
Byline: Beatrice E. Garcia
May 29--If you think getting high-speed Internet access is just a matter of making a phone call and setting up an appointment for installation, think again.
Ken Morris, who runs Morris Southeast Group, has negotiated with four companies in the past few months to set up high-speed service using digital subscriber lines for the two buildings he manages in Plantation. All four DSL providers are now out of business.
He's now contracted with Covad Communications for his office and he's checking out another firm to service one of the buildings. "I hope they show up for the dance. I'm desperate," Morris says.
One of his tenants, Boardroom Communications, is working with an Integrated Services Digital Network line from BellSouth. The public relations firm would rather have DSL service, which would be substantially faster -- and far cheaper.
Erika Fagan, Boardroom's office manager, says the firm pays as much as $270 some months for its ISDN line. BellSouth has told Boardroom it can't provide DSL service at Boardroom's location.
Mike Lewis, a music producer who works from his home in Miami Shores, is far more frustrated. BellSouth has told Lewis all four of his phone lines don't qualify for DSL service. The cable provider in Miami Shores, AT&T Broadband, hasn't upgraded its systems yet to offer Internet access via a cable modem. For now, a dial-up modem, which runs at a snail's pace of 56 kilobits per second compared to DSL's top speed of more than a megabite per second, is his only way to reach the Internet.
Lewis, like Morris and his...
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