The AT&T tech finally came out to the pad today to diagnose the connection problems and his solution was to replace the modem (which I suspected). The old modem is over nine years old, so I wasn't surprised to find that it needed to be replaced. He tested the line and couldn't find any problems with it, which I'm hoping holds true now that he's gone. The only thing to do is wait and see, and perhaps cross my fingers a little bit when I'm not typing to ensure that the connection stays strong. In any case, I have a nice new Motorola modem that is a lot smaller than the old SpeedStream modem - there is some technology-related downsizing which is a good thing.
And, the upside is that I didn't get charged for a new modem (although in my opinion, I shouldn't be charged for a new modem if the old one breaks, since it's not my hardware). The tech mumbled something about not charging me for a new modem since this was a replacement, but it did cause me to wonder what reason AT&T would give me if they did, in fact, make me pay for a new modem in order to simply restore my service that I've been paying for and which they promised me. As an aside, it's kind of like telling someone, "well, you don't have to pay for a new modem - you can choose to keep your jacked up connection. But you still have to pay us the monthly fee whether your service works right or not - it's your choice." Yeah, right. That's similar to an employer giving the "at least you have a job" line instead of trying to improve the working conditions which cause the employees to get disgruntled in the first place. A manufactured sense of gratitude under false pretenses is no good for anyone.
So, for the second time in the span of a week God has worked out me receiving something that I needed without having to pay for it, which is awesome! Now let's just hope that this is the last of the connection problems for a while. If you're still having trouble connecting to the blog, please let me know via email that you're having troubles so that I can get on it ASAP. Here's to stability...
