I bought a new DSL modem (not a model Verizon supports, by the way, but a lot better as far as advanced diagnostics goes - the Zoom brand, which used to be the Hayes brand, or acquired it somehow, for the geeks out there) and it didn’t make a whit of difference for our household bandwidth.

So I called Verizon last night, and the conversation that unfolded had so many similarities to Eddie Izzard’s Death Star Cantina sketch that I am moved to illustrate it here. It’s a bit out of order, though, so I’ll stick with the Izzard script (transcribed here - 1 pic very mildly NSFW, language NSFW).

End result, though, is that they’re going to exchange my old modem for a new one that they do support, but that if this doesn’t fix it (and odds are damned low) I’m going to move to a dedicated line with Speakeasy.net, probably with a lower bandwidth, but also probably with less stupid. I will however do some more diagnostics inside the house first, and probably also call normal phone repair about a possibly related problem with the entire line I have ADSL on. [Read more →]