Don't Back Down

Reports say that broadband penetration in the US is approaching - or may have even exceeded the 50% mark, which is great. I have to say that I'm a big fan of high-speed access, and I've become rather addicted to it. My best estimate shows that I've had cable access to the net since August of 2000, which means I haven't had to deal with dial-up for more than seven years. It's hard to even think of anything else. Unfortunately, when it goes out, it means dealing with a great deal of frustration.

Starting last Monday, the signal quality of my line has gone downhill, and when I say downhill, I'm not talking about the bunny slope. I'm talking olympic-level territory. On Monday afternoon, I called - and was connected to - someone who managed to reset things and get it up and running. I chalked it up to one of those annoyances that I have to deal with from time to time, but figured I'd deal with it and get on with things. Little did I know what was in store. If I did, I might have just gone on vacation.

On Tuesday, it happened again. This is just the sort of thing that irritates me, and even more so when they suddenly couldn't find any of my records. Not by phone number, not by address, not by name. They even looked it up by the MAC address of the modem, and when they finally found it that way, they couldn't access it. But eventually they managed to get it reset and life resumed, if a lot slower than normal. Another two or three calls on Tuesday resulted in nothing more than more frustration, though I did manage to get an appointment scheduled for Wednesday.

Unfortunately, Time Warner (in their infinite wisdom) decided that they had found the problem on Tuesday, and they canceled the call. So on Wednesday afternoon, just before the time window expired, I called and raised a ruckus because I hadn't heard from them, at which point they told me that the problem had been fixed. That was news to me. I did manage to get a regional manager of some sort on the phone, and he dug into things a little deeper, and determined that they had actually found another problem. This was good to know - except for the fact that they weren't going to be able to address it until at least Thursday.

As it turns out, there was a bad node somewhere in the area, and they couldn't replace it until overnight Thursday (this would be early Friday morning). However, when they did, things went back to normal, and Friday went by as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. It was refreshing. Then the weekend came, and since I'm rarely online much on the weekend, I didn't notice any problems (though there could have been a few).

A New Week and New Problems

Monday, however, brought with it more problems. The morning was okay, but by the afternoon, everything was breaking down again. Either the replacement node was also failing or there was another problem. Since it was late in the afternoon, I just logged a call and logged off, deciding that I'd skip the extra jump in my blood pressure, and see how things were in the morning. It was probably a good move, as by the morning, it was bad. Had I stewed all night, it would have been really ugly.

A Service Call Makes it Worse

On Tuesday, it was worse than ever, though I did get some good news - a tech could come out that very day, by noon. Of course, he didn't show up until nearly 1pm, and then only after I called to see where he was. When he did, he replaced my modem, and when he did, my connectivity went from intermittent to non-existent. Usually techs should improve things, not kill them entirely. I was cut off. Liberating in one sense, because I didn't have to fight, but utterly frustrating in another.

After a few more phone calls to see where things stood, I was assured that the issue had been turned over to maintenance for resolution. They should get to it today (with "today" being Tuesday), but if not, it should definitely be fixed by Wednesday, depending on volume. Naturally, it wasn't fixed on Tuesday.

I Replace My Own Modem

When Wednesday dawns, service is still out, but I decide that I'm going to play a hunch. When the tech replaced my modem, it was never able to receive an IP address. That's just strange. So I take it in myself and get a replacement. Doing that at least gets me back to where I was - slow service. Unfortunately, that's all it gets. By the time I get back at mid-day Wednesday, my status on the maintenance list has been moved up to the "next call", and that's where it stays, through no less than three calls and four hours.

Now What?

As it stands now, I still don't have service - at least not the regular, reliable service that I've had for the last seven-plus years. Sure, my account supposedly has a credit, but it's really impacting my ability to work or do much of anything productive. I've looked at a few dual-WAN routers, but since I can't get online, I can't do a lot of research. Also, the prior DSL research I had done all says that I'm too far away to get DSL (it's been a while though, so that may have changed). So there are a few load-balancing routers, but I don't know if any are good for this sort of setup, even if I can get the service I need.

Does anyone have any experience in this area? I sure don't, and just don't know what else to do. At last count, I've talked to a dozen first-level reps, perhaps four supervisors and one regional manager, and I still don't have service. Though I've been inconvenienced for going on a week and a half, all I can look to get out of Time Warner is a few bucks - they don't offer a service level agreement, and I can understand that. But any sort of service that does is vastly more expensive for a much slower speed. I just don't know what to do. Any ideas?