Fast service From VZ

[n2ize]

Today my dad told me that he wasn't getting any Internet service. So I came to check it out and sure enough the VOIP phone and Internet were down. So I headed for the basement area where the ONT and the routers, servers, etc. are located. I was contemplating having to call Verizon. But no sooner had I set foot into the driveway did a Verizon truck pull up and two service techs were at the bottom of the driveway. So I walk over and tell them my FiOS service seems to be down. So they say fine and come up the driveway with me to check the ONT and the service connection. Everything checks OK and I had a row of green lights on the panel inside the ONT. They run a few quick checks and tell me to reboot my router and viola' the Internet was back up and running. Apparently the router lost it's connection or froze up and needed to be rebooted to pull up an new IP addy.

While they were here they replaced a ground wire running from the ONT with a heavier gauge wire and added on a new ground strap. One tech was surprised that I had a regular Ethernet cable coming off the ONT rather than a coax/MoCA connection. But he left everything as is. They told me there were a lot of local problems due to the severe storms the other night.

But what was bizarre was that there I am having a problem and Verizon just happened to be right there. Talk about coincidence....

[KG4CGC]

There ARE NO coincidences John.

[n2ize]

There ARE NO coincidences John.

You mean there is a reason they were there. Perhaps they disconnected something by mistake or on purpose and knocked me off line. I was thinking that could be a possibility. It did seem odd that they just HAPPENED to be there at the same time.

Ah well, I can't complain. At least it was resolved quickly, they did check out my ONT and gave it a clean bill of health and, I got a brand new ground put on as well.

[KG4CGC]

You're right John. What was I thinking?

[N2RJ]

I got a brand new ground put on as well.

That's actually because NY State dinged Verizon for not properly grounding FiOS installations. Now they are basically going around and re-grounding installations done in NY.

[kd6nig]

I remember when I worked for Comcast a long time ago that the ground wire we used was so thick (it was a PITA to be honest) you could use it to jump start other peoples vans with it.

It was easier than carrying jumper cables around :)

[N2RJ]

I remember when I worked for Comcast a long time ago that the ground wire we used was so thick (it was a PITA to be honest) you could use it to jump start other peoples vans with it.

It was easier than carrying jumper cables around :)


You used to work for big C?

Just don't fall asleep in my living room, burn down my house or kill me please. :lol:

[kd6nig]

I remember when I worked for Comcast a long time ago that the ground wire we used was so thick (it was a PITA to be honest) you could use it to jump start other peoples vans with it.

It was easier than carrying jumper cables around :)


You used to work for big C?

Just don't fall asleep in my living room, burn down my house or kill me please. :lol:

Ages ago. Like 1994 :) I lasted almost 5 years there. Started out as Sac Cable, became Comcast, became AT&T (some kind of swap with CC to get areas, in those days you could only have so much percentage of markets) then back to CC. When it went back the second time they laid off a bunch of in-house people and started going to contract labor. I'm guessing its still the case. I was on UI 2 months after that one. There was some hiccup going on in the job sector at the time.

Went through a few other jobs in the intervening years before landing this Security Supervisor job. Will be here 6 years this month. Funny how the job I had during tech school wound up being the one I had :) Not much left in the tech support or computer sectors around here now :) The last tech support job I lost it got scary-was the last "downturn" before the housing boom and I was unemployed almost 6 months, was down to 2 weeks of UI. Thats when I applied here, called Swift about driving a truck, and after not hearing from either for 4 days, actually went down to the local supermarket and applied as a bagger (did that in High School!) All 3 called back the next day, the security place called first and wanted me in that morning for second interview/drug test and offered me the job by noon, when I came home I had Swift and the Grocery place on my answering machine. Had Swift called first, I'd probably be on the road right now.

Odd how things turn out. :) CC wasn't actually that bad to work for at the time though. They had just finished putting fiber in and were starting to talk about 2 way transmission on the lines (for the boxes to order PPV mostly, Internet was still further down the line) when I was shown the door. We had just been mandated 2 weeks before to stop using stapleguns on coax and start using clips (stapling the coax caused issues with the data flowing back from the boxes back into the plant to the headend was the reasoning they gave us). 2 weeks later I was turning in the massive box of clips they had gave me when I got laid off. With the number of people they laid off, they probably had a pretty good auction of vans since they cut the in house people basically in half. My van only had 25k on it, I had got it the year before. :)

[N2NH]

That Verizon was there on the spot was probably coincidence. The router here used to freeze once in awhile especially when I started using encryption. I noticed a guy in a car with a laptop the last few times that it did. I think he was trying to hack into WiFi setups and was tripping the routers. Only happens very rarely now.

You'd expect that from a kid, but this guy was about 40.

[n2ize]

That Verizon was there on the spot was probably coincidence. The router here used to freeze once in awhile especially when I started using encryption. I noticed a guy in a car with a laptop the last few times that it did. I think he was trying to hack into WiFi setups and was tripping the routers. Only happens very rarely now.

You'd expect that from a kid, but this guy was about 40.

Yeah, but it was uncanny that just as I got there they were standing right at the bottom of the driveway.

There is a house hat was just sold across the street that has FiOS. Perhaps they were there to disconnect or reconnect the service.

[N2RJ]

FB Joshua. Just thought that it was Comcastic that you worked there.

I'm sure that being a former "cable guy" was interesting. I'm intrigued by cable systems and other modern fiber based broadband networks. One of my very best buds back in Trinidad is now a cable installer and does everything from straight TV installs to triple play. He enjoys it, but I'm not so sure I'd enjoy interfacing with home users again. I used to do Dell at home service when I worked for Fujitsu in 1999/2000. Some customers I liked doing work for, but some I didn't really like because they'd always expect more that they paid for (including asking for pirated software) and were notoriously cheap. I enjoyed the extra cash but the abuse wasn't worth it. Eventually I left the country making it a moot point now.