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DSL followup
This afternoon, several hours after not getting the followup "Linda" promised me, I called back. "Melissa" told me that if I were at home she could connect me directly a level-three tech-support person, but they wouldn't talk to me if I wasn't there with the modem. She said she would note this in my record and that I should call back when I got home and point this out. (It sounded like she was pre-authorizing it.) She also told me that both her office and tech support answered 24 hours a day.
I got home, called, and sat on hold. Meanwhile, around 7PM, someone from the complaint department called, following up from "Linda". I said I thought Linda had asked for a tech-support person to call me back, and this person said she would submit that request. She also said the relevant office closed at 9PM. I said I did not want to go another day without service and she said she would mark it urgent. I hung up the still-on-hold call.
A few minutes later I realized that, once again, I'd been given inconsistent information, and I wasn't going to rely on them to call back before 9. So I called again, and -- again -- while I was on hold "Muhammad" from tech support called. (Aside: every time I requested or was offered a call I explicitly said to use my cell phone, and every single call came to the house line. Bah. The request wasn't gratuitious; I knew they were likely to ask me to move things around, and I wanted the hands free.)
"Muhammad" actually seemed to have a clue, though first he went through the script stuff that I had to deflect. ("Yes, this is the same modem I was using yesterday without issues. Yes, we have filters on all the phones, just like we did yesterday. Ok, if you insist we'll swap out the phone cord." Etc.) He first said we weren't getting signal (despite the solid-green lights), then said we were getting some but not full bandwidth. With "some", though, we could proceed to configuration. He said start Internet Explorer; I countered with a Mac; he said go to our URL; I said 404. Finally he said "we'll configure your modem manually".
This, to me, was code for "we're going to mess around with the TCP/IP settings on your machine", so I said "how 'bout we bring the router back into the picture and do it there?". To my surprise he said that'd be fine. It turns out the only thing I needed to set was my new user name and password; I said I hadn't been issued a password, he said I'd need to create one online, and I pointed out the obvious problem. I asked "can't you just give me one?" and he did. This could have been done yesterday, or days ago, and I might have been online this morning! (I then had to change it, which I would have anyway.)
I also had to zero out the DNS settings. That was it. I don't really believe our modem was any part of this problem, so I think it's quite likely that I could have had nearly-uninterrupted service had "Manu" been willing to give me a password last night as I'd been promised.
We seem to have lost our static IP address, which "Maddy" promised would not happen. We don't need it right now, but we've needed it in the past (for employer VPNs) and I wanted to keep that option open. With luck, we'll be on Nidhog-served FiOS by the time it matters.
Several Verizon employees I dealt with were either grossly misinformed on various things or outright lying to me. I'm not sure what to do about that yet.
Edit Friday AM: This morning there was, again, no apparent connectivity. After a little digging I was confident it was DNS. Michael (I think that probably really is his name) at Muhammad's number was able to confirm that and give me alternate DNS numbers to use. He, too, told me our modem is crap and initially said that was the problem. (Muhammad is sending a new modem next week, so we'll see what that does.)
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