Well,  after fighting for nearly 2 hours with my install and failing to get a sync between my new RG and the service, I finally got through to support.  The level 1 person kept telling me that the fast blnking red light on "Broadband" and nothing on "Service" was normal and that those would not turn green until I went to the web page to register my service.  I asked her how I could do that when I couldn't get to the web page since I didn't have internet service at all.  She fnally transferred me to a level 2 tech after about 40-45 minutes.  When he come on the line, he was asking me about my sold green "broadband" light with a flasing red "Service" light.  Apparently the level 1 either transferrred me to the wrong level 2 tech, or didn't listen to what I was telling her at all.

In any case, I once again explained that the outsde tech had arrived earlier in the day and informed my wife that I was to use the "blue pair".  I'm not sure what else he told her, but he left her with the impression that he expected my install to fail and that I should have had them do the install for me.  She assured him that I do know a little about networking and that she felt we would be just fine.  Well,  I had plenty of other issues on my plate, so when I got around to attempting my install at 8:00pm,  I went to lok at the NID to verify which "blue pair" I was supposed to use, but I couldn't see it due to the extra components they added over my 3rd line module where that pair was originally connected. (I should note that I have 2 Cat5e lines run from my NID to a punchdown in my basement).  I went to the punchdown and connected the pair to the jack for the RG and nothing.  After waiting my 5 minutes, I moved the jack for the RG to the blue pair from teh other Cat5e.  Still nothing.  OK, try reversing the tip/rng connections just in case I got those crossed, but stil nothing.  Finally on a whim, I take the RG and the BBU out to my NID and connect straight to the jack in the module there.  Stll only a fast blinking red light on the "Broadband" and nothing on "Service".  This tells me that if the note inside the door to the NID holds true, that the problem is on the AT&T side since I have no service at the NID.

Now it's pushing towards 10pm and I have no working voice service, my formerly working voicemail app on my iPhone is now reporting that my password/PN is invalid, and my RG still will not sync up for service.  I finally call AT&T support and get this friendly little girl who is not listening to what I am teling her, and she is trying hard to get me of the phone with her by teling me thngs like  started this post with.  The level 2 tech seemed much more willing to listen to what I was telling him, but he was also unable to identfy the problem.  According to his end, everything was setup, but he could not initiate communications to the RG from his end, and I could not get it going from my end.  I was left with no phone, no voice mail, and no new internet service, and no real explaination as to why. 

My wfe almost has me convinced that the outsde tech did this intentionally and that he was tring to scare her into paying for a tech install to resolve the problem.  It just seems rather coincidental that he played it up that he was expecting the install to fail, was it because he knew it would?  Does he feel threatened by these self-install options that AT&T is offering or is the install really that hard and any "normal" person won't be able to do it on their own without paying for an installation?

Sorry for the "attitude" but I just had a crappy day yesterday and it ended with what should have taken me 5-10 minutes to complete taking me over 3 hours and it's still not done...