My silly ISP

We have a phone line and Internet connection with Telenet, a company which provides phone and Internet services over the cable. Usually, Telenet works pretty well, but today there was an outage. Right when I was trying to work.

The line dropped twice for a few minutes in a period of only ten minutes, which I regarded as suspicious – especially since the cable modem has been acting weird for a while. Also, when the line was out, I couldn't get a dial tone on the phone either. So, I tried to call their support line to find out what was going wrong. Oh my...

The first number I called was 0800 66 800, which used to be their support line, and is a toll-free number. However, the only response I got there was "This number is no longer in use; please call us again at 015 66 66 66, where we'll gladly help you". Grmbl.

At that number, the same computer voice asked for my customer number. Which I didn't have handy; I had to find a bill first, so had to go and find mum (I don't know where they keep those), and she had to get out half the paperwork to find one. After entering that number (and chosing the right options in the menu that followed, I got someone on the phone, explained to her what was going on, and asked whether perhaps they were performing maintenance on the line.

The very first thing she asked was "Could you please give me your customer number, sir?"

...Then why did I have to enter it in the first place?

Well. She looked up a few things, and concluded that indeed our line had dropped a few times today, but that it could be the cable modem wearing out (which wouldn't be too strange, considering that the thing is about five years old now); so she wanted me to monitor it for the rest of the day; and if the problems remain, I should call back tonight or tomorrow morning.

Got back to mum to tell her that; but while explaining to dad (who had just come back from the shop) what I was talking about, he simply said 'oh, but Telenet is working on their infrastructure right down the street'...

Right. Obviously the girl on the other end of the phone line didn't know this (since I specifically asked, as it seemed the most logical explanation to me). Way to go, Telenet!