…”Hi, yes the lights on my 2wire modem/router keep blinking, then going off, then coming back on. The Internet is not working”.
.. “okay we’ll run some tests”….
<much time later>
…”okay we’ll send a technician out on Monday. We can have a service technician out between 4 and 8 p.m. is that alright?”
“Yes that’s fine.”
“Okay let me get you the trouble ticket number”
“Sorry for the delay this is taking a long time”
“My apologies, the system errored out, let me try that again.”
“I’m sorry this is taking so long, rather than wait on the phone, how about I send you an email with the confirmation of the technician’s visit?”
Now granted in this iPhone, iPad, Aircard, Mifi house I live in, and the fact that I’m blogging this obviously I have backup means to the Internet.. but if I didn’t… exactly how would one get an email confirming the technician’s appointment if he was coming out to fix the DSL in the first place?
Something to ponder ….
Yes, that’s right up there with calling your ISP because the Internet is down, and this is the welcome message you hear when you call them:
“Thank you for calling {ISP}. Did you know you can get answers to all your problems online by going to our web site?”
I’ve had similar after my ancient Westell modem failed. I quickly decided the problem was in my modem after several of their tests. The secong piece of useful information I got from them was that there was a new AT&T store near me. I was somewhat disconcerted when I saw they only had dozens of cellphones n display. I was pleasently pleased when I asked for a DSL modem and was given a choice of two models, a wireless four lan-port and a wired single lan port Motorola which I chose. Setup on this model was dream. Connect it, look thru the options until I spotted “Role of this Modem”, and select “Passthru without using an Internet address”. Voila! It worked!
Do you folks in the States have to reset your Internet gear (modems and possibly your modem-connected router) when your power goes out? I find that both Bell and Rogers here in Canada have to have their modems reset even if you have them on a battery backup. The connection doesn’t get cut, but something happens (external DNS, remote routing, something…) that prevents it from working correctly throughout the blackout, even through to when the power comes back on. A quick power cycle, and everything is good. Just wondered if this is a common occurrence.
I get calls from all sorts of people when the power goes out because their Internet isn’t working after a blackout. I just tell them to pull the power plug (they don’t often have power buttons on most DSL and cable modems), and plug em back in and it works better than 9 times out of ten. Even when power gets cut, these modems don’t seem to re-establish a connection properly when it comes back on until you do another soft reset.