The farmhouse phone service was installed … connected … ah, buried yesterday. The box was attached to the back side of the building a week ago but then the phone company had to contract to a trenching company to bring the line the 1800 feet from the road to the building. Assuming they actually buried the line the 18 inches deep they said they would, the only risk of destruction is the splice box 1/3 the way down the side of the driveway. Splice boxes are perhaps 3 inches square by 3 feet tall and "phone company green" so the blend in really well with agricultural crops – smart ?! Ill likely paint it safety yellow. It may be too conspicuous but that’s really the goal.

I ran CAT-6 network cable throughout the farmhouse – even for the phone lines. In the case of the primary service, this means there are four redundant pairs, all carrying the same signal. This feeds into the utility room where I have installed a small wall mounted rack unit. eventually, this will take a 1U panel for the phone, a 2U panel for the networking, a 1U panel for the gigabit switch, and a tray for the DSL modem, the router, and possible a NAS. By dawn’s early light, I installed the 12 port panel that services the DSL and phone connections.

For those who have never had DSL service, the way it works is that the phone line entering the building supports both DSL for internet and POTS* for voice. Little in-line filter blocks must be installed for every phone while an unfiltered connection goes to the DSL modem. Since everything is running through the utility room, I chose to use the patch panel to simplify the filter placement. I established a single port as "unfiltered" and then chained the remaining 11 ports together after installing a filter. So, any phone line from the residence which is plugged into port #1 will be unfiltered and can take the DSL modem. Any phone line plugged into #2 thru #12 will get a filtered phone signal. This will allow the DSL modem to go anywhere. In reality, I hope to install the DSL modem in the utility room so no lines from the residence will plug into port #1.

* POTS = plain old telephone service

This is not a story of barn yard animals. It does, however, indicate that the engineers at Verizon Wireless have a sense of humor when it comes to disaster readiness – a subject that typically has very little to laugh about.

I once conducted an interview for a new-hire candidate where I posed the challenge to design a communications solution to go into effect in case of a natural disaster. The impetus for my question was Hurricane Katrina. The candidate did a OK job in the short 30 minutes alloted.

Today I stumbled across a Wall Street Journal Market Watch article describing what Verizon has done to prepare or disaster scenarios.

Within 24 hours after the storm [Hurricane Gustav], test drive results indicated the network was up and running at nearly 100 percent. In one of the hardest hit areas — Houma, La. — test drive results within 48 hours after the storm, revealed a call completion rate of 100 percent. … Enhancements to its regional switching facilities, which doubled its traffic capacity and back-up power redundancies. Many are designed to withstand a Category 5 hurricane and serve as regional emergency operations centers in the event of a storm.

They describe some impressive emergency response capabilities too.

• A new 35-foot $150,000 Disaster Response Trailer to be used as a temporary customer service location in areas impacted by a disaster.
• A fleet of Cells on Wheels (COWs) and Cells on Light Trucks (COLTs), and Generators on Trailers (GOaTs).

I suspect AT&T Wireless and Sprint have similar readiness plans and equipment. Interesting stuff to consider when you really need that call to go through.

Take away my MTV. Take away my VCR. Take away my BBC and my NPR. Don’t you ever mess with my connectivity!

I’m back on line with all the fidelity I had before the disaster “customer service”. Ironically, they called me at 6pm to tell me they were still working on it. I say “ironic” because they had restored my service at two and a half hours previous. At this point, I’m just happy to have my connection back.

Yes, I am an Internet addict. Stay away from my bandwidth !

Last week I wrote of how “helpful” Verizon has been in correcting my billing issue. Well, their “helpfulness” continues. My service was to be fixed by the 30th of August. They then conveniently re-wrote that service request to *start* on the 30th and be completed by the 6th of September. The service ticket clearly said it would be completed between 8:00AM and 5:00PM. I got a bit concerned that if it were not done by 5:00PM, the call center would close. So, at 2:30pm I called. they assured me the service would be finished by 5:00PM. And if it was not, to call back, “the service department is open 24hrs a day”. Well, 6pm comes and goes and the service is still junk. So, I call the 800 number and get a recording that “representatives are available from 8:00MA to 5:00PM weekdays” and to call back. A quick check of the website now says my service has been delayed.

Verizon’s on-time service now rivals the major airlines !

This week I experienced the next generation of “customer service” – or should I say, dis-service. My first full Verizon phone/DSL bill came it a couple weeks ago and they had charged me full rate for the DSL rather than the special bundled deal I signed up for. So I called to get it corrected. I explained; “I work from home so I need the premiums DSL with 3 megabit down and 768 kilobit up”. “Yes, we can do that”, was the reply, “It’s $14.99 per month”. I thought “WOW” and “too good to be true”. “Let me confirm, this is the faster tier service with 768K upload speed – right?”. “Yes”. “Ok”. “We’ll make the change right away”.

Well, since I already had the fast service, I assumed all they would do if correct my bill. NOT!. About 10 days later, this past Monday to to be exact, my network went the way of the garden snail.

First thing Tuesday morning … well, 8AM Eastern since that is when their phone lines open … (isn’t this the phone company ?!) I call to find out “wazzup“.

I am told, they have signed me up for the “better than dial-up” service. “It gives you 768 kilobit down and 128 kilobit up”. I said, “WHAT?!” This is my lively-hood you’ve just “upgraded” ! To make things worse, we all know you never get the advertised speed. The 3M/768K was served me pretty well as I have predictable gotten 1.2M/700K. Now, if you extrapolate that the “better than dial-up” you get this ….

I don’t know about your Internet use, but imagine receiving about 20MB worth of mail each day, uploaded another 12MB of presentations. and then getting hit with 140MB of “patches” and “updates” to you computer. Over the course of a week, odds are good I will need to download a 500MB+ install of new software for testing; attend 5-10 web conferences, use VoIP, and run 2 or 3 instant messaging clients. At night, I run a bittorrent to get Linux builds and VM images that can easily be 4-5GB. This is not the domain of 148Kbit download !

Verizon tells me it will be fixed by Thursday night (I guess all service changes happen after hours). I have my fingers crossed. <all of them>

Update:? It’s Friday morning and my DSL speed has not improved. So, I called again at 8AM. At first, Verizon said the work ticket had been completed. Later, a different person said the ticket is now “pending” and “it may take up to 24 hours to register”. She followed that a bit later with “I have submitted a trouble ticket to ‘check into this’. It may take up to 3 business days to get a response.” So, it looks like it will be NEXT Thursday before I know if I need to rant again. <ugh>