For the past week, I've been traveling back and forth between home and work to meet various Comcast service techs who have been trying to figure out what's causing a problem with my Internet connection.

So far, I've had four on-site service calls and six phone conversations with various Comcast and Comcast subcontractor representatives -- probably spending more than 10 hours of my time. My children have been hampered from doing their homework (because so much of it involves connecting to the Internet), and my wife is ready to pull out her hair from all our unwanted visitors.

But it's not really a Comcast problem. I'm simply encountering the state of the industry.

We wanted choice. We got it. Aside from our local cable company and telecom system, if you live in a metropolitan area, you probably can choose from dozens of companies that want to sell you Internet service. Choice means a higher probability of meeting up with a problem or somebody who doesn't know his craft well.

We wanted low prices. We got them. Low prices mean we get less service -- because service costs money. Companies have fewer technicians in trucks ready for house calls, so we have to wait longer for them to arrive. We wait longer on phones, too.

Sometimes we get transferred to people in other cities -- or even other countries -- to solve a local problem. My calls to Comcast have been answered by people in Pittsburgh, Orlando, Fla., Montana, Nebraska, Philadelphia and St. Louis. According to Comcast reps, I should reach my local office the majority of the time, but that hasn't been my experience.

Although my current experience has been a poor one, I've also had great experiences with Comcast. I even have saved the telephone extensions of two knowledgeable Comcast reps (Sean and Brian) who go the extra mile for the user.

Similarly, I've heard both horror stories and rave reviews about Verizon, Microsoft, Apple, AOL and many other tech companies. It seems that everybody is lined up at one end of the spectrum or the other -- but nobody is ever neutral about the technical support they receive from any company.

After the fourth on-site service call, my wife said to me, "I'm picturing an elderly person trying to have a new Internet connection installed. How can they possibly do it if it's this hard for you?"

My associate, Mitch, mentioned to me that his wife Julie has made similar comments -- and she is in the business of helping home users connect to the Internet. She helps them deal with the cable or telecom company; installs software for them; and trains them. That must be how the elderly are able to get it done. They throw money at the problem.

More than a decade since the Internet started taking off, there are still plenty of problems -- and lots of ways to solve them. But it's going to cost you money, time or both. And frankly, I'd rather spend mine some other way.

It's not the service I mind paying for. It's the excess time and expense that come along with waiting at home for four hours, killing my evenings on the phones with tech reps, losing time I could have been using to make money elsewhere.

But as long as I want to keep up with technology, it's an expense I'm going to have to bear.