So i woke up this morning and my internet was out.

As someone who has spent years working ISP help desk and managing them, this is the worst way to start off a day. I may as well woke up with dog shit on my chest.

Checked all the normal things, reset everything, the tv worked so i figured they either found me torrenting again, or they found my alliance network. Sigh.

“What seems to be the problem today?”

“My internet is out, are there any issues with my account?”

typing..

“No it doesnt appear that there are. Are you using a router?” (Thank you SSL and Peer Guardian)

“Yep.”

“Oh great!” (Like this is her ticket to turf me off to linksys once she reboots it and it doesnt work.) “Let’s cycle the power on the router, do you know how to do that?”

“It’s already been done, can you see my modem?” (I know that if they can see my modem and i can get one computer online i guess its possible that my router is dumpy. If you’ve ever called comcast, you know that going this route is a losing battle.)

“Well, what we really need to do is reboot that router please.” (Translated as : I can’t advance to the next screen until you do this captain internet.)

“Ok.”

“Let’s also reboot the computer that’s connected to the router, as well as the cable modem.”

“Uh huh.”

I reboot the modem, as i know that this must be where the issue lies, and i’ll be damned if she isnt ping -t ing the connection and i shall not be called a liar.

I look at some more stuff on my router at this point.

“Ok, everything is rebooted, can you see the modem?”

“I can, my pings are fine. Can you access the internet?”

“Nope, i’m not getting an address from you.”

“Do you have any other computers on your home network?”

“I do.”

“Oh, we’re going to need to reboot those as well.” (Any respect for the tech I had is lost with this sentence.)

“No we don’t. If I direct connect to the modem, should i use a straight through or a cross-over?” (It’s a straight through cable)

“Uh..” (swing and a miss..)

“Because I’m running the dd-wrt v24 micro generic firmware on my linksys wrt54g and i think something may be going wonky since i upgraded from 23 last night.”

“…” (swing and a miss..)

“Hang on. Let me direct connect.”

“Ok sir.”

I direct connect and get nothing again, no ip, release / renew, nothing, reset the modem, nothing.

“I’m still not getting an IP. Can you send a reset to the modem from your side?”

“What kind of computer do you have sir?”

“…a Dell?” (Is she really taking this route?)

“Let me find you the number for Dell because…” (she is!)

“Nonononononono no no no. this isn’t a problem with my computer. Can you please send a reset to my modem.”

“Sir, i can ping your modem.”

“I really dont know how to tell you that theres a problem with the modem, you need to reset it because nothing i connect to the modem is getting an IP.”

“You know, it could be that the modem has gone bad..”

“Yeah that’s logical. But how about you send a reset to it first, please.”

(Silence from her side as i see the router go off and back on.)

And i get an IP address. Whatdoyakno.

“Ok, thank you, thats all i need.”

“Thanks for calling…”

I hang up.

I do not dignify you with a response for your inability to learn common fucking networking.

So i looked over my config and thought for a bit.

I tried a few different setups with the router and couldn’t get it to connect, i was pretty much ready to put the default linksys firmware back on there when i had an idea.

I duplicated the MAC address from my desktop to the router and BAM.

Connect. Comcast hates me.

So here’s the thing. It pisses me off that the person i talked to on the phone didn’t know how the fuck the internet works, but i kind of expect it and that is way shitty. What if someone not technical had called and dealt with the same issue. Not only would they have probably been sent to deal with linksys and dell, but they would have been out of service for a few days while a replacement modem arrived. I don’t know about you, but a few days without internet would destroy my house. This is a huge issue. As a former tech support manager, i cannot stress the importance of teaching your staff how to fucking troubleshoot and do their jobs well. This is only going to get worse as technology becomes more complex and fewer and fewer people know how to troubleshoot and fix it. Stay in the know. Educate yourself.