Back to the stone age with Verizon

When I was working for a college newspaper, the professors/advisers used to threaten less conscientious reporters with going to press with a huge white hole in a page, slugged “This blank space brought to you by [name of reporter who didn’t get copy in by deadline].”

Well, today’s hot steaming pile of white space is brought to you by Verizon FiOS, a company that has accomplished what I had not thought possible: it’s made me wish I had Comcast back.

Both phone and Internet service went belly up on Wednesday. When I called their we-won’t-help line and got Eric somewhere in the Philippines, he ran a line test and informed me that the problem was with “the big box”. (Not the first time since I moved in two months ago that I’ve had to call Verizon about equipment failure.) This turned out to be the high-rise apartment building equivalent of the customer premises equipment (CPE) box that regulates the “last mile” of wire from a central line to each customer’s unit.

And Verizon would have a technician out to look at it…sometime between 0900 and 1700 on Thursday.

Checking yesterday on the Verizon trouble ticket got me this:

Their idea of "working hard" is a possible fix two days after the failure is reported.

So, without access to my normal blogging device (i.e., personal laptop), I’m doing a quick bootleg post from work.

Where I’m also checking out Comcast services. Because their equipment is working fine in my apartment building.