May I just politely express my displeasure with Qwest right now? Apparently I signed up for Internet access and phone service over leased tin cans connected with used fishing line. And it’s only available two hours a day. At least, that’s the conclusion I draw based on the actual service I’ve received for the past two weeks.
Details to follow after this afternoon’s outage (apparently also a new feature I signed up for without realizing it).
Ed Bott (@ wordpress.com) 
I know what you mean! I’ve been plagued with offers from Verizon. I won’t sign-up with Fiber Optics. They haven’t been able to take care of their standard phone wires let alone a new version. Every time it rains my service is so noisy a modem won’t function properly. I have the same wire on my street since 1912! I use cable and cell phones…
Dave
I don’t get it. You’re so disgusted with the noisy century-old copper wiring that you refuse to use … fiber optics that are impervious to electronic noise? Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. That’s like refusing to use Windows XP because Millennium was so bad.
Note also — you’re probably never going to get any upgrades to the copper wiring in your neighborhood now. Once fiber is in, copper becomes legacy.
To Ed — a lot of people in the tech industry sign up for two broadband providers to get redundancy. This has benefits not just in cases of provider screwup — for example, when the Seattle area lost power for a week around Hanukkah 2006, Verizon DSL stayed up but Comcast cable went down. Maintaining a second connection on hot standby isn’t cheap, but when your livelihood depends on it, $600 a year isn’t an awful investment.
Tom, I’ve been considering a redundant data connection for a while now, and this incident has probably pushed me over the edge…
I do not understand why so many people have given up their landline. In a power outage, a plain phone plugged directly into the phone jack still works and does not need to be recharged.
Ed, in your case, I would think an ISP would want to avoid you as a client. 🙂 Don’t you download and upload a lot of stuff?
My problem with Qwest is that when I signed up for DSL service on their website it was for 7 Mbps service. When it was installed, it was only 2.1 Mbps. They explained that it was “up to” 7 Mbps service. I asked for locations where 7 Mbps was available, and they said “no where in my area”.
I’m no math wiz, but 2.1 Mbps seems like a very long way from the promised 7 Mbps. Had they promised 3 and I got 2.5 — well, then maybe I’d be a happier camper.
It has been very solid/reliable, however, since they found and replaced an old, weathered wire leading to my office.
-Timmer
The copper plant is very susceptible to weather conditions, and if you’re in flood-prone areas, you’re probably going to deal with it sooner or later. Your friendly local outside repair technician can usually fix this by moving your line to a new cable/pair. But if you can get fiber, you probably should, since it doesn’t have this problem.