Friday evening, I saw the “Message Waiting” light blinking on our phone, so I grabbed the handset to see what the message was. When I turned the handset on, there was no sound coming from the ear piece. We have another handset, so I tried that one. Sure enough, no fast beeping and no dial tone. However, our DSL connection was steady and strong.
Figuring that this might be a temporary problem, I let the issue go for the time being. After all, we don’t really make too many phone calls. Saturday morning came and the line was still toneless. So, I unplugged our phone and DSL filter/modem from the jack and let it “clear” for about a minute, as I’d been previously advised to do at our old home (we had two cordless handsets there and when they were both in use, the dial tone would go - got rid of one).
This did not work, so I went to the local payphone and called for an appointment. The call center agent went through some basic troubleshooting. As I suspected, a visit was required. So, the next available appointment was an “all day” one for today. I was surfng the net about 1/2 hour ago and my internet connection died. So, I checked the lights on DSL modem. The connection light was blinking, which means that it was trying to sync. It went solid, so I tried the phone beside the modem and my dial tone was back! Then, I heard a tech introduce himself and advise he had fixed the problem. He must have been at the CO, as I saw no Aliant truck anywhere near.
On a lark, I check my modem’s line stats and it seems that my theoretical maximum line speed is now a bit faster. Before, it was about 2.8MBits/sec, which is why I didn’t bother going for the “up to” 5MBit Ultra service for $10 more per month. I wouldn’t see a significant change in speed from my 1.5 MBit connection to justify the extra cost. The stats page shows now, a max of about 3.6MBits, so there is definitely an overall improvement in my telephone line connection.
I am impressed. Thank you, Aliant. You have delivered exactly what you said that you would. There’s another company that offers services that you do, but they don’t deliver what they say that they will. In my opinion, you may have competitors, but you don’t have any competition.
