hm... good stuff! what programs do you use to run a traceroute? I'd like to try it. 

the good part about all this is that i learned a lot. some stuff i knew sort of, but now I'm really clear about it. the bad part is that I don't understand why AT&T hasn't been doing exactly this fromt he beginning. they have all the training and tools, and I would expect that a real expert would have thought of doing this much earlier - and taken only a few minutes to do so. doesn't AT&T have like a test lab with lots of sample computers somewhere so they could easily replicate user problems quickly? 

oh well.