I've had difficulties reaching anyone with a brain at my DSL provider Verizon California. I can reliably ping the first hop from my home to the CO with a 25ms delay. But if I ping any other location, packets get dropped or significantly delayed. To me, this sounds like Verizon has an internal routing problem rather than a problem with my phone line. Note that it rained recently in our area and the cable vault in front of my is usually covered with stagnant water because the gutters don't drain it away. I have tried to explain this to tech support but they refuse to go off script, even the supervisors. They keep insisting on sending a tech to my home when I suggest this should be escalated to their network operations team. Anyhow, if I can reliably ping the first hop from my home, would that eliminate my telephone connection as part of the problem? Just a sanity check on my part. Thanks. matthew black california state university, long beach