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time warner is the failingest fail that ever failed failingly in a failing manner. we haven't had internet since about 1:00 last night. it just randomly stopped. for no reason. no informative pop-up...no power outages...no nothing. this is the second time this has happened in 10 days, and the UMPteenth time this has happened since we started with time warner. we've had time warner since we got our own internet service, and we spend more time on the phone trying to get the fucking thing to work than we do on the gorram internet.
last week, our internet just up and stopped working. for no reason. no pop-up. no notification. no nothing. we call them. about four hours later, they manage to FIND the issue, which is that our modem has been quarantined for some reason. okay. fair enough. my sister had come over and she actually didn't have a firewall outside the default windows firewall, and so it seemed plausible that maybe she had some kind of virus that was spamming the system. we gave benefit of doubt. they turned our modem back on, we swept juli's computer--which, for the record, had absolutely nothing more than a few harmless cookies in the virus net when we were through--and then things seemed fine again.
until friday night. 1am, the net just fucking cuts out again. i've had it. i've HAD it. it was storming, so i cut them something of a break--i thought maybe the issue was something in the entire area. maybe a wire got knockedo ut somewhere, or there was a surge in the storm. but then i noticed my AIM service still worked. i just couldn't load any browsers. i had an IP, but no ping attempts went through.
this is getting absurd. i'm at my wit's end. i actually called up a friend of mine to see if there were any other ISPs in the austin area. unfortunately, time warner has a syndicated monopoly on the entire internet in austin. we're stuck with these idiots. but wait! it looks like there is a ray of hope! earthlink has service in our area~
HALLELUJAH! so i set up an account with earthlink. unfortunately, i am told it is actually STILL time warner...but since our Road Runner never worked, and since earthlink is actually cheaper, we decided to go through with the swap anyway. but the installation office is closed--understandable, since it was like 2:30 in the morning by then. so we went to bed and decided to call in the morning.
so i call when we get up, and it routes me back through the same time warner people... i roll my eyes, but whatever. they swap our service over and then i get transferred to a techie to activate the earthlink. still nothing. begin the dog and pony show.
Tech: "Is there a little X over the connection icon in the bottom right corner?"
Me: "No, sir, I am connected to the internet, it just isn't working."
Tech: "Well is your modem and router working proper--"
Me: "Yessir, all the lights are on, but I have no packet exchange and no browsers will load."
Tech: "Okay, well could you go to your START menu--"
Me: "Sir I'm not retarded, I know how to work my computer; what program do you need me to bring up?"
Tech: "Well go up to 'run'--"
Me: "D, pull up the command prompt."
Tech: "...Well yes, that's it."
Me: "Okay ping attempts are not going through. We have an IP address and a DNS suffix, but no pings will go through."
Tech: "Okay, well type this in for me: ping www.--"
Me: "Dell.com, YES, I KNOW. IT'S NOT WORKING. I JUST TOLD YOU NO PING ATTEMPTS WERE GETTING THROUGH."
Tech: "Well do you have an IP address?"
Me: "ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME????"
patience? nonexistent by this point. i have little patience to begin with, especially in the face of stupidity and ineptitude, but it is MORE than used up by this point. i thrust the phone at lu because i'm about to let loose a blue streak that would make a seasoned sailor uncomfortable, and the genius that she is, lu asks if the moron can check and see if our modem has been quarantined again.
lo and behold, it has been.
AGAIN, FOR NO REASON. we all have up to date virus software. we all have recent spyware software. we all use multiple firewalls. there is NO REASON our computers should even be infected with anything, much less spamming time warner to the point that they feel the need to quarantine our modem. but we decide to humor them and we run full infection diagnostics on all three of our computers.
nothing. abso-fucking-lutely nothing. by now i've had it. we call and leave a message with the head-honcho people who will turn off the quarantine, tell them what we've done, and they say they will unquarantine the modem for 24 hours so we can try and isolate the problem. it'll take about 15 minutes for the modem to come back online, he says.
six hours later, we still have no internet. i have since left four more messages and talked with three other people, and no one will help me. no one will tell me what the problem is, why the modem is STILL quarantined, or how to fix it. i have been refused my requests to speak with management, and apparently the high-brow people who refuse to answer my messages are otherwise unreachable. they have no internal phone number, and answer to no one.
we go to bed furious, and the next morning we call have a message from the support guys saying they can't even find our damn account. head? meet desk. you're going to be great friends. so we call them back and miracle of miracles we actually get through to someone. apparently the guy tried to unquarantine the modem, but because we had switched to earthlink, he no longer had the authority to do it.
WHAT.
so we have to jump through eighteen more flaming hoops, call up earthlink and get them to switch us back to roadrunner long enough to unquarantine the modem, and then maybe--MAYBE--things will actually fucking work like they're supposed to. so far so good. we've had 18 hours of uninterrupted service so far. if we're lucky, maybe it'll last 'til...this Friday.
i am so disgusted i could spit nails. i am very impatient, but generally tolerant. however ineptitude and discourtesy are two things i cannot abide no matter the situation. this is unacceptable, and i cannot remedy it...and no one will fix it FOR me. what the fuck do i do now? i'm almost willing to move to an area where Time Warner ISN'T the ISP just to get away from these retards; i'm so tired of this...ugh...
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