Back Online

Hooray!  The new modem is hooked up and we are back online and have phone service again.  The technician got here and took one look at how I had things hooked up and asked me “where is the incoming line?”  Which is what I was wondering.  There are two plugs coming in from the phone line that go into the modem, or are supposed to be.  But I showed they guy the installation instructions and it said to disconnect them.  I had everything plugged in the way the instructions said, and I was trying to convey that to the person in India last night, but I wasn’t getting my message across (which is why talking to technical support halfway across the globe sucks).

The technician simply plugged in the lines after lengthening the plugs a bit and then we just needed to wait for the setup process to complete.  I even showed him the instructions I had, and he said he had never actually looked at the instructions for any of the “self-install” setups, but the ones I had were definitely not correct.  I didn’t even need to call the 877 number that they had on the instructions to activate it

After about 15 minutes our service was restored.  The technician went out to check the lines once we were sure all the phones were working and I had internet service on all the computers.  When he got to the house he said he ran some test on our line before he came to the door and saw that our service had been interrupted about 5 times since midnight.  We had a similar problem a year and a half ago and it turned out some squirrels had chewed through some lines and that was the cause of the service lapses.  He said he was going to go run his tests, and we might lose our signal for a few minutes while he was testing things, but it wouldn’t take long. 

When all was said and done, he said that there were wet lines, or something like that, and that he would need to put in a request for line service.  They would be out in a day or two and take care of fixing the lines.  So for now, I think we have things running again.