This past Tuesday night we had an electrical storm pass through. All was well around the house but the DSL was down. I called Centurylink the next morning and they said they'd have a technician there "between 1pm and 5pm". My wife arranged things so she could be there to meet the tech being as we have dogs. She is not a computer tech and doesn't aspire to be one. I got home around 6pm and no technician and no DSL signal so I called Centurylink to check on the repair status. The robot operator said that the problem would be repaired by 7pm. My wife and I left the house around 7:15pm headed to church with no sign of a Centurylink technician on the horizon.
Upon returning home I saw that we a missed a call at 7:17pm from Centurylink (were they watching us leave the house from the bushes?). I called the number which reached their robot operator...after punching several buttons I managed to get to a real breathing person. They said that everything checked fine on their equipment and that the tech needed to get inside the house to check the modem, etc., and that he would call tomorrow (Thursday)....this is approaching 48 hours that the DSL and weather station has been down...WU had already put the red letters on my station stating that it wasn't reporting and also removed it from the local list.
Around noon the technician calls and is on his way to the house. My wife is there to meet him. Remember, I've already been told that all of their equipment checks out good. Well, he must have been there for several hours. He tested the modem (good), then replaced the modem. Still no DSL. He checked the lightning arrestors...all were good. He rode down the road to the main switch that we feed off of. He expressed to my wife that he was having a hard time trying to figure what was wrong. Finally I guess he lucked up on something and got a DSL signal...he got internet on the desktop and set my wife's laptop up to connect wirelessly. I'm sure he was proud of himself.
Well, when I walked in I immediately became alarmed as my Dlink DIR-655 piled in a box with ethernet cables and power supplies.
Hanging in the DLinks place was a brand spanking new black shiny "Centurytel (Zyxtel) PK5001Z".
Gee, nice. Needless to say, the "tech" didn't worry about making sure the Dish receiver was connecting, or the Blu-Ray player, or...the D610 weather laptop.
I went into the settings of the Centuryjunk machine and changed the network settings to reflect what was in the DLink router...the DVR and Blu-Ray player started connecting (I haven't really used them so I don't know how good of a connection I have with them yet). The D610 and Cumulus are having serious FTP issues, though. They started connecting and FTPing to the website and updating to WU, CWOP, and PWS...but it only lasted for maybe 15 minutes or so and then start getting 100040 FTP errors. I messed with it for several hours this morning with not much success. WU has already put the red letters back on my station...they'll be putting it back offline shortly.
Naturally
www.beeweather.com isn't updating...and I was just beginning to get a few regular hits in this rural area.
As for the DLink...for some reason I can't access the user interface...my password is no good.
What the...???? The router was working fine "pre-Centurylink tech visit". It will take a reset to get back into it. Thus several years of tweaks and configuration changes will be history...the kid's and grandkid's MAC addresses will have to re-entered.
I have no idea what is happening with Cumulus and the FTP errors. I don't know if it's on my end (nothing has really changed), on GoDaddy's end (I'm not aware of any changes there, but...?), or in between with Centurystink and the Zyxel modem/router mongrel.
...and a trivial point. The "tech" decided the new modem needed to be oriented with the lights pointing towards the ceiling...so there's a new hole in the side of the computer work center. I mean, if he was going to replace my DLink why not put it in the same position?
<sigh> Well, thanks for letting me vent. This has really hacked me off, but as for my feelings towards Centurylink...I'll leave that to your imagination. If anybody has any information or tips in regards to the Zyxel modem I'd appreciate it. Mostly just looking to vent here. Thanks for listening (or clicking 'Delete'...really, how would I ever know.
).
Gloom, despair, and agony on me...
Ed
