So we moved to a new, much nicer, apartment last weekend. Paid some $50 to transfer my ATT service (landline and DSL) to the new location. All was well… Friday morning I checked my email as usual and went off to work. Got home Friday night, no internet. The DSL modem was not detecting a connection. Tried other phone jacks, tried connecting straight to computer (bypassing router)… nothing. Called ATT customer disservice and spoke to tech support (some guy in India named Mike). Went through the usual BS of rebooting, etc. “Mike” decided it was a line problem. After a 30 minute phone call he transferred me to the line service folks. I guess it was a long wait, so he said they’d call me back. After about 20 or so minutes, I get a call. It’s an automated message saying my new phone service is active and ready to use. Err… no. Call tech support back, ask for the line service people, get put on hold for 20-30 minutes. Finally some guy (in America this time, probably down south) picks up and we troubleshoot some basic stuff (check for dialtone, etc). He says it’s either a modem problem or a line problem. I went and got a new modem, same problem. It costs $60 to have someone look at my modem/line and they can come out sometime between 9AM-5PM the next day. Sorry, I’ve got more important things to do than pay $60 to sit around the house all day. After wasting my entire night, I decide I’m canceling ATT and switching to Time Warner/Road Runner.
Saturday (today) comes around. I go to the Time Warner office around 1PM. Wait in line for a good 20 minutes and finally get to chat with some guy about my service. Super quick, he hands me a modem, I tell him I want the 8MBPS package, he says I’m all set. No absurd connection fee like ATT. Get home, plug in my new modem, page comes up in Firefox saying to call 1800.xxx.xxxx to active my service. Rock! I call the number and there’s no prompt for activating service. I decide the “add service” line is the closest one. Get put on hold for 15 minutes. Sales guy answers and says I have the wrong department. He transfers me. On hold another 15 minutes. Shaniqua answers, give her my account info and she says I’m ready to rock. Quick reboot of the modem and I’m ready for high speed browsing again. Err… not so fast. The “Call to active” page comes up again. Not cool. Try plugging computer straight into modem (bypass router again), same problem. Call back. This time I try the tech support option, as sales got me nowhere. On the phone with tech support, I give my name. Then my phone number. Then my name again. Phone number again. Address. Phone number again. MAC address of modem. Phone number again. Name again. IP Address of modem. Phone number again. 30+ minutes go by and I’m pissed. I tell the guy to transfer me to someone else. He says local customer service can help. Put on hold for 45 minutes. Hang up. Call back. Pick the sales option again, wrong department again. On hold for 30 minutes. Some guy in a deep voice says “Hello.” I go “Is this customer service?” “Yes.” Err… Help? He says he’ll transfer me to “tier 3” to solve my problem. Short hold, friendly guy named Mike or something answers. He pings my modem a few times, and suddenly pages are loading. Hang up. Ready to browse! Err… 30 seconds later, nothing. I can get to the help.rr.com site… so I try their online support. Guy there says he can’t help and I need to call that damn local 1800 number again. I tell him that I tried that number and there’s no option for customer service and the tech support guys can’t find my info. He says tech support can help. So I try, sure enough, they find my info (after a 20 minute hold). Lady on the phone can’t comprehend the fact that I built my own computer (“You sure it’s not a Dell or something?”). She walks me through the most basic crap (reboot, unplug cables, etc). At one point I couldn’t connect to my router, I told her this. She asked me to ping some websites and tell her my IP. I tell her I can’t do that because I can’t connect to the router. She tells me to release/renew the IP. I humor her and tell her it didn’t work, because I can’t connect to the router. She’s confused (nothing in the support transcript for that, I guess). At one point while she is rambling off things to try (which I’m ignoring), I try plugging the modem straight into the computer again. Sure enough, internet. I hang up on her without notice and go buy a new router. Problem solved. So somehow my phone line went to crap and my router died.