On Hold Hell

Technology has created a new challenge - calling the tech support line and waiting "On Hold Hell".  I just experienced that as I called Cincinnati Bell Telephone Zoomtown DSL support to ask them to "retrain" my modem to a faster speed.

Our DSL speed at home after testing was holding at less than 500kbs download - and not enough for quality streaming for www.hulu.com (Garen) and the Disney channel (Ellen).  The modem had been "trained down" in speed one rainy afternoon when I had called regarding internet connection problems. The good news is after I finally got through to the rep, I am now at 2.4meg per sec. download speed.

But that result is only because - 1)  I waited 3 hours on hold (YES  3 HOURS).  2) I was smart enough about what was going on to convince the rep to "juice up the modem" vs take their 1 hour troubleshooting step by step approach.  I pity the novice user attempting to solve this speed problem with tech support.

So (as Craig Ferguson on the Late Late Show says) - What have we learned?

(1) There is a Hell - and it is being on Hold with Technical Support (add to this the India accent for the outsourced call center).
(2)  You are paying good money for internet speed and don't even know how fast you're going.