DSL over SEP

Says the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, in introducing the SEP field (the Somebody Else’s Problem field):

Sometimes, it is much cheaper and easier to make people think that something works, rather than actually make it work. After all, the result is, in all important aspects, the same.

In the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg, SEP fields are in high demand, and often used as a replacement for electromagnetic fields. One of the more trivial examples is local GSM operator Tango whose engineering department apparently considers the entire MMS service (and much of its data service) to be an SEP — more precisely, the marketing department’s. These services are advertised, but seem to be non-operational.Sligtly more bizarre, the local P&T’s business customer department, which erected an SEP field to deflect any possibility of putting up DSL for us. After four weeks of waiting time, the problem hit two unsuspecting technicians who were unable to put the necessary cabling in place, erected another SEP field, and deflected the problem at the local soccer club. By an unlikely, but only almost improbable, coincidence, the problem hit the right person there, and cabling was put in place last week. We are told that the problem is going to bounce around inside P&T for another week, at the end of which time we might actually get decent Internet connectivity at home.Meanwhile, competitiveness with regard to technology and innovation (see page 6) is considered somebody else’s problem, too, in particular by these people.(True Hitchhiker aficionados will notice that Luxembourg shares a significant border with Belgium. The landscape is beautiful, though.)