Verizon: The End?

Today was a fairly productive day for Verizon. Sometimes I think that they often do so poorly to lower the standards so that when they actually do something fairly adequately that it is notable. This morning, a Verizon van pulled up to take a look at our crosstalk issue. Wow, a whole five days early! This sounds great until you realize that the service call was placed nine days before. Anyway, it takes Verizon Guy a whole ten seconds to figure out that there is some serious problems with our buried line. The final diagnosis is that there is a serious short in the line. Therefore, as I had deduced long before, the underground line needs to be replaced. Normally, they would run a temporary line just strung across the yard to the pillar so we would have good phone service until they came in and buried the new line. However, the pillar is across the road, so they can't quite do that with our case. Luckily, the cable that ran to the old house (buried in the 1950's) still had the wires strung up in the pillar, and just disconnected. After seeking out the line in the yard, digging down to it, cutting it and testing it, we discover that our 1950's era phone line is in better condition than our 1977 phone line. So, there's a splice in the middle of our yard with a brake fluid bottle over it, and then a bright orange cable strung across the yard and to the box on the side of the house. This provides crystal clear phone service, believe it or not. The down side is that we probably have to have the temporary line across the yard for two weeks before they bury the new line, but at least our line is clear. I made a comment about how that 1950's line was vintage GTE before my dad (resident historian) informed me that I was wrong. That line was vintage GT (General Telephone)! Regardless, it works. So, after Verizon Guy left, I figured I'd tempt fate and try long distance. We called one number that was long distance, but still in our MSA (Market Service Area), and lo and behold, it worked. So, then we tried to call a number that was out of our MSA and we got the three tones of death. I called the 700 number to see what it said, and I got the MCI message and the three tones, so that was a no go. We waited until the official time it was supposed to be fixed, and sure enough, it wasn't. So, it was time to call Verizon again. At this point, we pretty much have the service number memorized. We explained our long distance problem yet again, and they say they'll fix it in eight hours. At this point, we did not believe them. However, three hours later, I gave the 700 number a try, and amazingly, now it says our carrier is Verizon! We gave our long distance a try, and it works. Outstanding! Verizon has successfully accomplished two things today. That has to be a record. So, this may end my Verizon rants for a while, at least until they come out to bury the cable. Who knows what kind of chaos they can cause while they're doing that? Verizon: They just now started sorta working for me... it's about damn time! -- Big Cray: Accept No Substitute