Adventures with my Monopoly ISP

DSL

My Pacific Bell DSL service has been intermittent, off more than on, from mid-May to the end of September 2001. Here is a blow-by-blow of what’s been going on. My DSL was installed more than a year ago. Outages were frustrating but few and far between. And then...

Saturday, May 12, 2001

For 24 hours I have been off the grid. pacbel DSL is kaput. I am on an island in cyberspace, cut off from information and expression.

Monday, May 14, 2001

the dsl line is still kaput and I’m concerned that my mail and such is going unanswered. SBC “Advanced Solutions” reports that the trouble ticket (NP182166) hasn’t been assigned to a technician yet. and the eLearningForum meeting is only a week away. I need to practice online.

supposedly, the SBC Advanced Solutions folk will be here tomorrow to assess the situation.

I am still marooned. my software is not recognizing my modem. DSL service is kaput.

Wednesday, May 16, 2001

sam, from sbc advanced services came to the house to fix the DSL yesterday. no luck. the problem is the bridge tap (262’ from box to outside; 119.5’ length of tap). pacbell will try degrading our service to 718 KB (to avoid the expense of replacing the tap). if that doesn’t work, they’ll cut it in half again, to 384 KB. I should holler and keep hollering until this is fixed. 888-900-9933 is the number to call. also,

3:30 dsl remains down.

Thursday, May 17, 2001

this computer communications meltdown is interrupting my life right now. no dsl.

Saturday, May 19, 2001

dsl is down. the fellow this morning says pacbell should remove the bridgetap.the office had closed my trouble ticket, indicating that things were okay. we now have a new trouble ticket: NP 186125. if I don’t hear from a technician within 24 hours, I should call back for a status report if I don’t hear. these people are in trouble – the left hand does not know what the right is doing. there appears to be no central customer file documenting account history.

Monday, May 21, 2001

 a guy from the phone company apparently showed up at 2:30. uta told him all’s well. I called to report problem not fixed, got bounced to phone guy. he checks, says half the line is out, says I should call ASI, here’s their number – and it’s the number I’d originally called. he’s a software installation guy. he calls maintenance. they’re scheduled to come out tomorrow or next day. NP 187317 is our new trouble ticket number.

Tuesday, May 22, 2001

DSL is down so I’m trying to log on to the net with a modem. this is a terrific hassle.

mr. pacbell just came. everything’s working fine. it was working fine when he got here! what should be done? he’ll put in a request to take out the bridge tap and the coils (?), either of which could disrupt service.

Friday, May 25, 2001

yesterday pac bell showed up. supposedly replaced a broken wire that may have been causing the problem. also replaced the bridge-tap. this morning DSL is down again now. the help line person says they have a server down that has knocked out all of California. they do not have an estimated time of repair yet.

Tuesday, May 29, 2001

dsl is down again. I called 888 900 9933. Rachel (i.d. number 48471) informs me that the only systems they support are windows 95-98-ME and mac. they do not support UNIX or Linux customers. she says she cannot check networked computers. *** I called back. the tech told me they’ve been having problems since Thursday. bad router. “at 1:00 pm they said all systems would be back up in four hours so everything should be okay by 4:00 pm.”

happily, DSL was up at 4:00.

Friday, June 01, 2001

DSL is down again today. this is truly flaky. on the one hand, I’m writing this article about companies maintaining relationships with their customers by keeping the promise; on the other pacbell is flaking out, inept, and will occasionally make something up rather than solve my problem. keep the promise? they’re not even providing the basic service.

Wednesday, June 06, 2001

back home I find that DSL has been down for two days. they say someone will be out here tomorrow between 8 and noon to check on things.

Saturday, June 09, 2001

when I returned home, DSL had been down since Tuesday. yesterday midday a repair guy from ASI came by the house and found that the line coming into the house is dead. supposedly, someone will be by here on Monday at 11 am to fix it.

last night DSL came back on. clearly, the problem is not local, i.e. at 30 poppy lane.

Sunday, June 10, 2001

the day is nearly over; the DSL is once again out of commission. I’m going to have to evaluate cable and satellite alternatives. this is bizarre.

Monday, June 11, 2001

ASI was here 10:30  - 12:00 to check out our connection to the net. Problem is at the central office. They will reseat the card there before 2:00 today. If that doesn’t work, they will transfer our line to another port.

Friday, June 15, 2001

DSL is down. this morning I put in a fresh phone line to the modem. still down. they promise to send someone here 1-5 today. NP 200511.

the asi guy is in the basement (arrived just as our session started.) he disconnected my line! so we’re half an hour into the groove session and I am isolated. I am trying to get back in on another line now but the vaio froze up.

kee-reist. my demo on groove was totally blown. the asi guy reports that the problem is probably in the central office, as I’d told asi when I called in the problem. maybe Monday they’ll figure this out. “does this happen often?” “more often than you’d expect. It’s usually our fault.”

Sunday, June 17, 2001

called the (*&#X asi people. they had promised to call me back to set an appointment for someone from the phone company to come out and look at the dsl line. the asi person on the phone said they needed to replace a soft coil 1100’ down the line. that was set to happen some time before 6 pm on Wednesday. huh? I’ve been down for more than a month. is there any way to accelerate that. the rep told me that’s the earliest they can do, that “we just have to be patient” about these things. I am incensed. should I write the FCC, the FTC, the department of justice, and/or the local consumer affairs reporters?

Wednesday, June 20, 2001

DSL magically reappeared around 2:30 pm yesterday. No visit from pacbell; no notice; no phone call. no reason to have stayed at home awaiting their arrival. I see that earthlink gets good reviews and will look into switching my service to them.

Thursday, June 21, 2001

pacbell showed up midday to fix the dsl. I said it was working and went through the usual patter about bridge taps, soft coils, wire to the pole. after nosing around the phone box in the basement, the repair guy asked if I’d done any of the phone wiring. some of the wires were simply twisted together, not fastened with clamps as they should be. he went down and rewired them.

Friday, June 22, 2001

pac bell is here again. the bell guy says he replaced wiring to the junction box at marin & Euclid. oddly, our upstream was working very well, the downstream was only at 50%. now the bellhead is in a cherry-picker looking at the top of the pole out front; his compadre is in the cellar checking the signals where the wires come in. they left to find a clear wire from marin avenue to poppy lane. I walked the dogs down to where they were. it’s not the line that’s a problem. bridge taps and such should not effect someone so close to the central office either. the problem must be in the central office. it’s probably a bad card. he’s called it in to LA.

I mentioned that the last few times I’d called asi, I’d told them the problem is probably a bad card in the main office. I suggested they needed a central database where they’d know the history of an account before coming out. yes, but we’re a different department, they explained. “we’re engineers.”

Saturday, June 30, 2001

this morning I was creating a zoomerang survey of eLearning Forum when DSL went down. I am pretty sure I lost everything, a hour’s work. fucking pacbel. In late afternoon, DSL came back up. should I call pacbell and wait 25 minutes again to tell them their service is intermittent?

Sunday, July 01, 2001

goddamned pac bell. DSL just went out again. it’s almost 3:00 pm.

Monday, July 02, 2001

called pacbell to report that dsl had miraculously come back on. noon. down again. called SBI. NP209298. should hear something between 1 and 5 today.

two repair trucks arrive before I got home. They checked the modem, the line into the house, the box – and concluded there was something wrong with the wire. Someone would fix it before 6:00 pm on Friday.

Friday, July 06, 2001

the DSL saga continues. guys showed up on Tuesday, decided another twosome was required. they were scheduled to come at 2:00 pm. one guy showed, the other didn’t. I got a message on my cell phone at 6:30, saying no one was home (Austin was; I was in Vermont with my cell phone cut off). also, that the problem was probably that I was too far from the central office – that was usually what did it on grizzly peak; maybe we could get their pronto fiber service. (we are at most 12,000 ft from the central office – distance is not the problem.) uta returned to find this guy’s note; she called ASI and talked with a sympathetic rep. she said a team would be here Friday. two guys showed up and tested the line. the outbound signal is consuming 96% of capacity; something’s wrong. the PacBell guy checked the poll at Euclid & Marin; everything’s fine there. that means the difficulty is between that corner and the pole outside. probably another bridge tap. that takes the engineers; they will call in the order. no idea when they might come out.

every time we call DSI it’s as if it’s the first time. there’s no history. they have no continuing record of calls or customer info. they never leave any paperwork with us documenting what they’ve done. reinvent the wheel, anyone?

now it turns out that austin’s phone line and 525-7374 are down.

Saturday, July 07, 2001

got a morning call from asi requesting that I recycle the DSL modem. I did, but explained that 7374 and 6243 were no longer working. no dial tone. at the modem, the async light is flashing. asi guy says he’ll dispatch a crew to fix it. I mention that yesterday I was told it would take the engineers to fix the DSL. apparently no one had called the engineers. instead, they had issued another profile (which I think means downgraded my service) and now they were going to switch it back since that obviously didn’t fix the problem.

I will probably spend the day waiting for these guys to get it together. this is becoming truly aggravating.

I called asi back. they have a tech on the way who should be here around two. a pacbell guy will be here some time before Wednesday the 11^th. I asked if the engineers had been called, since that was what the guys yesterday told me. no, because the pac bell guy had reported that everything was fine. (this being the same guy who assured me it was a engineering problem, probably another bridge tap on the line.)

the asi tech who was here yesterday called to say that he’d be coming by later. did I hear right that the pac bell fellow said the problem was with the line and that the engineers would need to be called in to fix it? yes, that’s what was said. don’t know why the office is not reading the reports that are turned in.

Jacob and sammy dropped by this afternoon. Jacob discovered he’d wrapped the wires around the wrong binding post, thereby shorting out two outgoing lines & the DSL.

Wednesday, July 11, 2001

asi called shortly after 7 and told me the engineers had removed a bridgetap from the line and everything should be fine now.

Friday, July 27, 2001

dsl is out. they have a new number. 877 722-3755.  now you have to push through seven levels of voice mail fu in order to get to a message that says that wait times are more than 10 minutes. I waited a while but had to hang up and get back to work. at 5:45 pm I’m calling again. again, I got the message that hold times exceed 10 minutes. it’s 5:52 now… holding… at 6:00, a tech answered. he warned me, however, that his computer was down, he had no diagnostic tools, he’d take down my information but he had so many requests, he could not assure me that he’d be able to check my service when he came in tomorrow. I said that wasn’t good enough, recounting my history of outages over the past three months. I explained that more than a dozen people from pacbell, ASI, and pacbell engineering had been out here. they’d removed two bridge taps, complained about one another’s wiring, and run a variety of tests. the tech said he could give me a local number to call, 888 900-9933. I told him that number was no longer in service. ah, try this one: 877 722 3755. that was, of course, the number I’d called to talk with this guy in the first place. kafka lives.

Saturday, July 28, 2001

I called SBC again and got through to a human in only five minutes. He led me through many steps of a trouble-shooting protocol. SBC has added this buffer between the customer and ASI. When we’d gone through the regular questions about modem lights and what-not, the SBC tech called ASI and explained what was going on. Fifteen or twenty minutes later, ASI had looked at my records, discussed things among themselves, and decided they’d better call me about this; in all likelihood, someone is going to have to come out. The trouble ticket is NP223305; my SBI case no. is 13392801.

Monday, July 30, 2001

I called ASI. turns out I was given the incorrect phone number. I have heard from no one about my DSL. I didn’t really think things could get worse but it seems they have. I feel abandoned. I am uploading some very large files by modem – at excruciatingly slow speed. I found a pacbell email address on the net and sent them a message. later, dsl magically returned. since our server is down, I still can’t reach the net via dsl.

email from Jay

Ref: 510 525 7374

Ticket: NP223305

My DSL service disappeared last Thursday. The Alcatel ADSL 1000 modem async light is continually flashing.

On Saturday, after spending more than 30 minutes on the phone going through SBCs troubleshooting procedure, I was told that ASI recognized there was a problem on the line and that ASI would call me, probably later that day.

Its Monday afternoon. I have heard nothing from ASI. I called the number the SBC fellow said to try if I didnt hear back; its not a working number.

My DSL has been down more than up for two and a half months.

Please call me at 510 528 3105.

Wednesday, August 01, 2001

I got an automated reply email from pacbell. it lists the regular instructions for resetting one’s computer, totally disregarding my history on this account, my request for a call, the fact that the phone company had given me a bogus phone number to call, that they’d dropped by case entirely. ***steam***

Email reply from Pacbell

From: support_replies@pacbell.net [mailto:support_replies@pacbell.net]
Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2001 1:22 PM
To: jaycross@internettime.com
Subject: Re : DSL outage, calls not returned

Hello User jaycross@internettime.com,
I have received your email regarding your connection.
If you have lost connection with the dsl.

Please try the following trouble shooting steps.  Please make sure you test your connection after each procedure.

To confirm that your Enternet 300 software is not currently set to automatically disconnect after a period of inactivity, please do the following:
1. Double-click Enternet 300.
2. Highlight the desired profile.
3. Click on Properties.
4. Select the TCP tab.
5. Uncheck Idle Timeout.
 Reboot your computer
 Power cycle your DSL connection as follows:
    a. Unplug the power going to the DSL modem. Leave the Modem "ON".
    b. Shut down your computer.
    c. After 60 seconds, reboot the computer.
    d. Turn the DSL modem off and plug the power source back in.
    e. Turn the DSL modem on.
    f. Wait 1-2 minutes for the modem to sync (the Power/Sync indicator
        light will flash red during the wait).
    g. If this does not resolve the issue, please contact technical
        support at 1-800-net-help options 2,1,1.
 Create a New Profile
    a. Double Click on EnterNet 300
    b. Create New Profile
    c. Follow those directions
    d. Try and connect that way
 To remove those cache files:
    1. Select "Options" on your Netscape main menu bar.
    2. Select "Network Preferences".
    3. From this screen you will see a button to select
       "Clear Memory Cache Now" and  "Clear Disk Cache Now".
    4. Click on the "Clear Memory Cache Now" button.
    5. Click "OK" and close Netscape.
    6. Restart your computer.
 Check your Network Settings
    1. From the Start menu, choose Settings then choose Control Panels.
    2. Launch the Network icon.
    3. In the section labeled "The following network components are
        installed:" select the TCP/IP item.
    4. Press the Properties button.
    5. Press the IP Address tab.
    6. Make sure Specify an IP address is selected, and verify that the
        IP address listed is theone which was assigned to you.
    7. Make sure the Subnet Mask indicated is 255.255.255.0.
    8. Press the WINS Configuration tab.
    9. Make sure Disable WINS Configuration is selected.
  10. Press the Gateway tab.
   11. Make sure the Gateway address listed is the one which was assigned to you
   12. Press the DNS Configuration tab.
   13. In the Host: field, enter your user name.
   14. In the Domain field, enter "pacbell.net".
   15. Under DNS Search Order, enter the two server addresses closest to your area based on the chart below:
                         San Francisco:
                         206.13.28.12
                         Sacramento:
                         206.13.31.12
                         Los Angeles:
                         206.13.29.12
                         San Diego:
                         206.13.30.12
For instance, if you live in San Francisco, enter 206.13.28.12 as your primary server and 206.13.31.12 as your secondary.
   16. Press OK twice.
   17. If a message appears prompting "Do you want to restart your computer now?", press Yes.
If this message does not appear, restart your computer by pressing the Start button, then choose Shutdown. Make sure the Restart your computer button is selected, then press Yes.
*IMPORTANT*  If you need to go further than this point, make sure that you save any files, email, bookmarks etc. Once you go through the steps below, all of your information will disappear.
5. Create a New Profile
    a. Double Click on EnterNet 300
    b. Create New Profile
    c. Follow those directions
    d. Try and connect that way
Uninstall /reinstall Enternet 300
    Make sure you have the Enternet 300 CD before uninstalling.
     Uninstall procedure:
      Go to Start
      Go to Programs
      Choose Enternet300 Uninstall Wizard (it will do the rest for you).
      Reinstall Procedure:
      Insert the CD into the CD-ROM Drive,
      Double click the My Computer icon,
      Double click the CD-ROM Drive icon and look for the Winenter File,
      it is sometimes found on the first page, and sometimes found in
      the Enternet 300 folder.(You are looking for the blue computer
      icon that says set up).   Double click and follow instructions on the screen.
      This will install on dual processor machines
      But, the Software can be downloaded from:
        http://dialup.pacbell.net/dsl/enternet.html
 Create a New Profile
    a. Double Click on EnterNet 300
    b. Create New Profile
    c. Follow those directions
    d. Try and connect that way

If you are still having trouble, please contact DSL Maintenance at 1-888-900-9933, or via email at datacomm@pacbell.com. We apologize for the inconvenience.

http://dialup.pacbell.net/troubleguides/hintindex.html is a very good site for troubleshooting dsl.

Thank you for choosing SBC Internet Services.

Regards,

Mary Lou
Technical Analyst
SBC Internet Services

Friday, August 03, 2001

Email from Jay to Pacbell

From: Jay Cross [jaycross@internettime.com]
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 5:10 PM
To: support_replies@pacbell.net
Subject: RE: Re : DSL outage, calls not returned

My DSL service is down once again.
Please don't send me more form responses. This has been going on for three months. Believe me, I've flipped everything off and on more than once. A dozen technicians, both ASI and PacBell have been out here to check. Invariably, the signal coming into my house is the problem.

As I said in the email below, last time I called the SBC number, I spent more than half an hour going through diagnostics and was told someone from ASI would call. No one did. So I called the number I'd received from ASI. It was not a working number.

I am experiencing the worst service I have ever received in my life.

My DSL has been down more than up for three months.

Please have a technician call me.

Saturday, August 04, 2001

Monday, August 06, 2001

Tuesday, August 07, 2001

pacbell called. michelle, who’s at support@pacbell.net. she was following up on my email to find out if ASI had gotten in touch. I explained yes, after I’d called them. However, their procedure when they can’t reach a customer is to cancel the trouble ticket. Their inability to get through = problem solved. I offered to email michelle a copy of my recent history with pacbell. She said she’d forward it up the line. This is the first time I’ve received sympathy from anyone in this organization.

I posted the notes that I'd sent her here for all to read.

Wednesday, August 15, 2001

It's noon. DSL just went down again. I don't have time to wait now. * * * it's 6:58 pm and I'm on hold for SBC -- 877 722 3755. Edward (badge #PI45396) answered a couple of minutes later. I explained the situation and referred him to www.jaycross.com/jayhoo/dsl.htm. He politely apologized for the bad service I've received and asked that I call ASI; he has documented the situation as case 13765850. I mentioned that the number I had for ASI directed callers to 877 722 3755. Edward told me if I selected 1,4 I'd get ASI; 1,3 gets repair status. I called the number and selected 1,4. Michael Tran answered and took down my information. I was assigned trouble ticket NP233659. I left my cell phone number. ASI is supposed to get back in touch within 24 hours.

Thursday, August 16, 2001

This morning I received a call from ASI. would it be convenient to visit this morning between 9 and noon? sure, I said. a few minutes later, I received another call. the tech guy was not available in the morning, could we do one to six pm? sure. myrna (415 856 2172) called, asking that the tech call her to coordinate things as soon as he arrived. in mid-afternoon, in the middle of a business meeting, I received a call on my cell phone from myrna to tell me that the tech was getting no answer at my house, on 525 7374, and I explained that there is no phone attached to this line, as I have explained many times before, that my wife was at home, that we'd promised to be waiting there 1-6 pm today, and our residence number is 525 9487, and don't you guys ever write anything down? i got home late this evening. ASI had visited. My DSL remains down. Now the companion phone line, 525 7374, is also down, so I can no longer use that as a modem line. The folks who visited explained that the DSL line was bad, so pac bell needs to look at things.

Friday, August 17, 2001

Myrna called me back at 10:15 this morning. They are changing the port to which my DSL is connected. She will contact PacBell and will stay in touch. I called back to mention that 525 7374 was not working as a phone line since Kevin's visit yesterday; Myrna will contact Kevin.

Saturday, August 18, 2001

Myrna called at 8:30 this morning. Pac Bell has changed the port at the central office. A tech will come by Monday morning to restore our service.

Monday, August 20, 2001

ASI came to the house today and supposedly fixed dsl. we have a new modem. the tech said a short in the wiring from the last visit fried the old one. the lights on the new modem are green, indicating sync, but I have no dsl on my machine.

Tuesday, August 21, 2001

ASI has called a few times to check on DSL but not when I'm here to get the calls. Also, I don't know what to tell them. DSL is not up. We're trying to figure out if it's our problem or theirs.

Austin, our son/sysop, came over from San Francisco to try to figure out what's going wrong. it may be the new modem. The sync lights are green but the computer isn't connecting. He's taking the instruction manual home to read tonight.

Thursday, August 23, 2001

Austin came back today to wrassle with the DSL.

The conclusion: ASI told us our Alcatel 1000 ADSL modem was kaput, fried by a short circuit. We were given a replacement, an Alcatel Speed Touch Home. While the new modem appears to sync, our computer does not recognize it.

We tried a variety of cables. We tried with our regular computer and with a laptop. We tried to get on the net and we tried to access the internal configuration of the modem. None of this was succcessful.

Our conclusion is that (1) the modem is faulty or (2) the modem requires new settings (e.g. DNS, Gateway, IP address). It seems that the tech corrected one problem (got the net to the modem) but added a new one (computer can't see the modem).

One more thing. Austin's regular phone line is dead. That's 510 525 6243. We don't know which of the recent visits killed it since he has not tried to use it since last Thursday.

I just left a message for Myrna describing the current situation and suggesting she check back here if there are questions.

I'm contemplating sending the web address of this page to the board of SBC just to let them understand the depth of their problems. It will probably take me a day or two to dig out their email addresses.

Friday, August 24

Myrna called back. The central office had not changed their settings to enable our new modem to function. Thirty minutes later, everything was working fine.

Sunday, September 2

DSL stopped functioning around 5:00 pm. Tuesday morning I put in a call to Myrna. She called back later and told me the port had probably been cut off; it's really impossible to tell what happened. Trouble ticket NP 244755. Anyway, service was restored. PBI thinks perhaps the modem is not working properly.

Monday, September 3
Austin came by, we were briefly online. Before he returned to San Francisco, we had again lost DSL service.

Friday, September 07, 2001
DSL is out again. I called Myrna to report it. Myrna called back. She will do whatever she did last time to tweak my service. However, a technician needs to come out because our problem, whatever it is, is intermittent and what we've been doing only works for a short time. The tech is supposed to come today between 1 and 5 pm. In mid-afternoon, Steve arrived. He wired in a new splitter and replaced some carbons (lightening protection). Now we're back on line. For the longer haul, Steve suggests we move the DSL modem back upstairs next to the phone line. The long cables running outside the house may be causing our problems. * * * DSL soon disappeared on us. I decided to wait until Austin could move the modem back upstairs. In the meanwhile, I'm rediscovering what it's like to connect to the world over a 56K modem connection.

Sunday, September 16, 2001
Austin came home to move the modem. Alas, the two sync lights on the modem are lit, but we have no DSL service. I left a message for Myrna to call me. She has not. Perhaps it's vacation time.

Thursday, September 20, 2001
Finally had a break in my schedule to call SBC. Shane answered. I told him I had no DSL service. He pinged my IP. At first all he could see was "Host unknown" and "Unable to access..." Then he got some sort of reading but said it was going up and down. After two minutes, it would time out.

Shane: "You have an ADSL 1000 modem, correct?"

Jay: "No, I have an Agilent Speed Home."

Shane: "Is it on the carpet?"

Jay: "No, it's on a wood floor."

Shane: "I can't do a test from here because of the built-in firewall. You'll have to talk with ASI."

Jay: "Can you transfer me to ASI?"

Shane: "Sure, here you go."

ASI: "Sir, you're going to have to speak up. .... I can't hear you. I hear nothing...."

Monday, September 24, 2001

ASI answered almost immediately this morning! Robert ran a test from his end and said he "could see all the lights down the tunnel" to my modem. He thinks the problem is my configuration although it could be a cable issue. The readings are nowhere near what they should be:

The problem here is the UP. No juice. Not enough signal strength to read.

Robert says to call Tech Support at 800 638 4357. He also suggests calling EPC Discepancy Desk at 800 708 4638 to get our bill straightened out.

I will call Austin to check things once more on our end.

Tuesday, September 25

DSL is working again! We did nothing here. All of a sudden, everything appears to be working fine.

Thursday, February 7, 2002

DSL went out for no obvious reason. James Fairfield came out from SBC Advanced Solutions the next day. Down to the cellar to check where the wires come into the box. No signal. No dial tone. He called Pac Bell. They've added a new step: I am asked to fill out a customer service form. I note that he has been polite, courteous, forthright, etc.; there's no place to note that my problem persists.

Pacbell was to send someone one Monday between 8 and noon. He arrived around 2:15. I was out. After verifying that we had no dial tone, he fixed something external and service was restored.

Here's a follow-up surprise. Late in the day I receive a call from Edward Waggler. He's a supervisor with SBC. He wanted to know if my service had been restored. I said yes. Whew, he said. "I'm glad to hear that." Edward told me it's de rigeur to follow up on PacBell service calls that follow an SBC call. I told him this was certainly an improvement over the old days. He said if I ever encountered a DSL problem again, I should feel free to call him direct at 925-560-7252. Bravo, SBC Advanced Communications.