Good news: internets are up and running chez K.
As to what happened--you with sufficient memories may recall we went through enormous hassles here when we moved. The internets were crashing daily and I had raise holy hell to get it fixed. It took months and took a senior tech in Boise to finally get someone out here to address the issue. Things have been more or less OK since then.
Until yesterday. It started getting sporadic again, which is exactly what happened the last two times until it finally crashed, which of course it did today. I spent three hours on the phone with various "tech" people who friggin' argued with me instead of trying to fix it. The really irksome thing is I KNOW what's wrong (it's a junction box down the street), I pay for LINE BACKER (which covers all repairs), and yet these stupid friggin' people would NOT put through a repair ticket for me, insisting there was simply "congestion" in my neighborhood. (And I'm a DSL customer, for crying out loud).
Anyway, I demanded a repair ticket be placed, but in the meantime they said the "congestion" would take over a month to get fixed. I will simply go to Comcast if this isn't repaired PERMANENTLY on Friday. I've had it with Qwest.