Well..not really. But close!
We got broadband years back here and originally the techs in-place at the server farm handled support calls for customers in house and directly. So you talked to the actual on-site IT guys. Perfect!
As they grew we reached the "Indian Tech Support" stage and then moved to the "Untrained American With Flip Book and No Idea" phase.
During this time I had two years of constant internet problems with the routers and numerous tech calls and visits that did nothing. I finally got to where I just did it myself all the time.
A few months ago, after umpteen zillion calls and visits, a tech person said, "Heeeey--that modem you're using is not compatible with our network.".
Where did I get this modem? From...Charter of course. It's the last one they gave me to "fix" the last problem they didn't fix. I asked why nearly two years went by and no service rep ever spotted this and got the techinical explanation of, "Dunno".
So they gave me a new modem a couple of months back and I thought, "Shiny! The two years mystery is solved!"...not.
A month later, this modem is crapping out twice a day and forcing me to power cycle every wired and wireless device in my house to get it to reset and connect properly (that's like 12 things here). Finally I was so peeved I went down and visited their local office and let them have it. It was then they found that the modem they had given me to replace the other one they had given me was also made obsolete the day after I was given it. So they gave me a $150 credit and a new modem with the right architecture and firmware. Awesome! Free at last!!
Then we had a storm.
It was bad and I figured the sudden twice a day disconnect was the result of storm repairs. Of course, twice a day for 4-8 hours at a time is a bit much. Finally, this weekend it wouldn't even reconnect to the servers. The modem just blinked it's power light at me like a grinning idiot.
So I made a home appointment--which I dread as usually that means the rip all the wires out and replace them with new ones and then say, "That was probably your problem"..."probably".
I had noticed the connection was dropping worst in the day and then seemed to come back at night so it led me to think it might be something heat related. My office is air conditioned but I checked all the wires before the service guy came, went outside and checked the lines up and down the block and asked the neighbors if they had problems. No clues, no one else having problems.
So I am back to knowing the lines all seem good, the modem itself does function so there must be a line problem somewhere.
I decided to take the wall plate for my main connector out of the wall and check the street side connector fitting. Sure enough, it was just slightly loose. What it seems was happening is that when the sun came up it was warming the connector up and in expanding it got loose--probably the outside one was hotter than the inside one due to the AC. At night, when it cooled down, it would be "back on" because the couplings were snug again.
So I fixed it.
Thus ends my rantish tale of technological vexation. I feel better now.