The Obama-McCain presidential debate

I CANNOT comment on the first U.S. presidential debate of this electoral season. SkyCable decided to interrupt my viewing by doing maintenance work in our area. Thanks!

While I'm at it, I dunno why even its affiliate Bayan is becoming crappy in its DSL service. I used to be a super advocate of the company because while everyone connected to PLDT and SmartBro was freaking out over their lousy intermittent service, and overeager customer billings (as in bayad ka na, sinisingil ka pa rin!), my Bayan DSL was working beautifully. And even on the off-chance that my service would become spotty, Bayan's customer service personnel were very professional and always patient to explain how to guide you through the difficulties of reconnecting.

So after nagging them for this problem (which started to happen co-accidentally? after a strong typhoon about two months ago), someone came and changed my modem box. (Btw, it took an unusually long period of time to reach anyone in their customer service as the line seemed to be perpetually busy or ringing forever, so I finally decided to go to Bayan's PR to complain. In my business, one day w/o an Internet connect means a day closer to a story deadline w/ nothing to show for.) Anyhoo, the repair guy said after two years, my old gray ZTE modem box has outlived its usefulness and so he changed it to a new one. Also ZTE, this time in black, and my Internet connect was up and running again.

Everything was working splendidly until yesterday when I was YM'ing w/ Poknat, and my connection kept dropping. So I made a call and this really sungit customer service girl picked up and after bitching with each other, she said she would make a report. I told her to re-set my connection as well from her end. That seemed to do the trick since my connect was alright again until I logged off last night.

This morning, a Bayan repair guy arrived and said he would change my modem box. And I said, but you guys just changed it. The new guy explained that they have been receiving complaints about the new ZTE modems which go funky whenever they receive calls. (I have a landline going thru the same DSL cable.) He asked if I didn't notice the same. I said no. When I complained about my spotty connection yesterday, I said, I wasn't even using the phone at all.

So he changes the modem box anyway to a Huawei (the same brand as Globe's been using for its HDSPA flash drive/wifi connect). For good measure, he changes all the phone jacks as well. Everything's cool for now but I can't help but think my DSL issue is linked to the ongoing maintenance work of SkyCable, as our cable TV connect starting going funky yesterday as well. Well, let's see how it goes. But I'm starting to look at the Globelines DSL/phone promotions already.