Sam Weller

There's a new game in town and it's called Monopoly. Except in this frustrating, real-life rendition of the Milton Bradley classic, you do not pass Go. You do not collect $200. And you don't get telephone service for a long, long time.

You've got to wonder why the Justice Department is so damned concerned with Bill Gates and Microsoft and "protecting consumer rights" when companies like Ameritech have a good service area of Chicago by the proverbial balls. I don't care about Bill Gates and Windows 2000. Christ, I own a Macintosh. All I really want-really badly-is telephone service. Is that so much to ask? As a writer, I cannot make a living without a phone. Thank you Ameritech.

Let me explain my predicament.

I recently moved back to the city after a one-year hiatus on the West Coast. There, my wife and I signed up for telephone service with Pacific Bell and had it within five days. With all the bells and whistles: caller ID and call waiting. Big deal, right? Well it is. After returning to my beloved Windy City, I dialed up our friendly telephone provider and was told that the soonest I could have new service was five weeks. Without a phone, fax and e-mail, I can't work. Now how do you suppose I'm going to pay my first Ameritech bill?

So I purchased a cell phone and dialed up Ameritech to beg. I was told that the company is currently "understaffed" and that "the 773 area code is breaking records for new service" applications. Is this really my problem?

Ameritech spokesperson Dave Pacholczyk says that I have options. According to Pacholczyk, there are other local service providers in my area.

Not so, says Jonathan Goldman, Director of Policy and Governmental Affairs for the Citizens Utility Board, an independent watchdog organization established to protect consumers from the big bad utility wolves. There are other providers, he says, but, at least in my area, they all use Ameritech's phone lines.

"We're getting more and more complaints about the installation problem," says Sterling. "It's definitely getting worse."

Confounding matters, Sterling says he is now hearing reports that even after the long wait for new service, Ameritech linemen are "missing appointments." Imagine that. You wait a month and then the phone guy never shows up.

Adding to this head scratcher, Illinois Regulatory standards dictate that the phone company is supposed to provide new service within five business days. Yeah, right.

In the meantime, I sit and I wait. I can file a formal complaint online at www.ic.state.li.us The only problem... can't sign on. (2000-07-13)

Also by Sam Weller

NIGHT MUSIC
First, he needs talent. Loads of it. Then, he needs the philanthropic know-how of the Chicago-based Stradivari Society.
(2000-06-29)

STATE OF GRACE
This is the amazing Grace Cubs fans revere, worship, know and love. To the throngs of Cubby diehards too young to remember Ernie Banks for anything but his retired number flapping on the left field flagpole at Wrigley, Mark Grace is, no question, this generation's Mr. Cub.
(2000-03-30)

STATE OF GRACE
This is the amazing Grace Cubs fans revere, worship, know and love. To the throngs of Cubby diehards too young to remember Ernie Banks for anything but his retired number flapping on the left field flagpole at Wrigley, Mark Grace is, no question, this generation's Mr. Cub.
(2000-03-30)

Seventies heaven
From cartoons to the Tet offensive, two new books illuminate the wild contradiction of the 1970s. It was a decade sandwiched between the hippie, make-love-not-war radicalism of the sixties, and the BMW-drivin', Ronald-Reagan-rulin', tear-down-the-wall eighties.
(2000-03-02)

Seventies heaven
(2000-03-02)

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