Pro boards not responding

[dave]

I don't remember typical DSL speeds, but .86 dowload must be slower than normal. Is normal about 3 to 5 Mbps?

[Ralph]

At the busiest time it should be at least 1.5Mbps, I usually average about 2.5 - 3.  This is stuck between DSL and dial-up!
The repairman woke me up this morning at the ass crack of dawn to let me know he was almost here, so I went down to talk with him.  The landline issue is due to the recent storm and some crushed cables they have over where they are redoing the streets here.  No one told them about the cables, and won't admit to it, so they are having a helluva time pinpointing them.  My phones out, and a neighbors around the corner is out as well.......go figure.
He did say I was lucky to have the DSL and that it should come back up to normal once they have the problem fixed.  He also said that the bad connection and slow speed would cause the modem to drop it every now and then.

Still, it's now 6:45 pm and still no phone or change in the DSL.
I'm hoping I get some credit on the phone bill for this crap.

[dave]

I've done it with the cable company. If you write a note with some reasonable arithmetic that addresses how much you thought you lost in service, they might give you that as a credit. Enclose the note with your bill and a check for what you feel you owe and wait and see what happens the following month. It's easier for a clerk to agree with your math and mark you paid in full rather than fill out paperwork and cut a check for a refund to be sent to you.

I'll tell you what the Verizon repairman told me one day when I was living in the Hudson Valley, had suffered multiple phone outages over the period of a few months that they never seemed able to fix. I invited him in the kitchen and told him I had known a few old Telco employees who would have been embarrassed to death to have to tell a customer the b.s. he was serving up about how he was sure the phone line was fixed this time.

He smiled sheepishly, looked at the floor and said, "Don't EVER tell anyone I told you this, but you phone line won't be fixed fpr a long time, if ever. You're all on copper line on this road and the company told us they are absolutely NOT putting any money into copper." (He meant the switches and devices used on copper line, components that make it work.)
"What the hell," I said. "And they want me to keep paying my bill?"
"They have put every available penny into fiber (fiber optical, e.g., FIOS which was promised so long ago and is a long way off on rural roads. They put FIOS in urban areas where they can make more profits per mile.)
That's when I left Verizon and switched to cable phone.