mike@deneb.cortland.com wrote,

Afraid that you've missed an important point in your review of their service. When you signed up for dsl service, you had a choice of dsl service or "Cais dedicated" for mission critical applications.

As a matter of fact, I have their business service. There is a significant price difference between SDSL and ADSL, at least with this provider. This is a SOHO router service, not single host. But I'm really trying to make a general operational point.

The dedicated nature of dsl connections is an artefact of the technology and not something that the isp can afford to provide at the prices charged. You're paying the rough equivalent of dialup service and can't expect to get the service provided to dedicated customers (T1, etc) who pay much more. You made the choice when you signed up. Providing you with the information you want will detract from resources available to solve the problem quickly.

I'm quite aware of labor rates, and I'm not expecting personal notification. Changing a voice message every 4 hours or so, and/or sending email, is hardly what I call labor-intensive. Try the customer service lines at dial providers such as Mindspring/Earthlink. Status reports there on POP problems, as well as on support web pages.

You're benefiting from the technology by getting more data for your buck. You can't realistically expect anything which is remotely labor intensive to be provided. Or have your labor rates declined dramatically recently?

Mine haven't

The response I'm seeing is poor for a $19.95 per month dial provider, or a telco, or a discount airline. 24+ hour outages are hardly something I'd call minor.