Having lived for the last 48 hours without an internet connection, I discovered two things. The first is that I am a bit of an internet junkie (At least when the weather is poor). The second is that my service provider thinks that every fix can be done remotely. At the first sign of a problem, I checked all the connections, reset the modem, and did all the things that I could think of to do but nothing helped. I called for service when that failed and spent a long time on hold. The worst part was listening to the messages telling me how I could go online and do all sorts of things. After finally getting a live person, another 20 minds of rechecking the connections, plugging and unplugging and...nothing. The tech person is checking for life from her end, and she can see there is problem, but (after trying things for half an hour) was unable to fix it. So, they begrudgingly sent out a technician. Some unit had fried in the basement of the building which had nothing to do with me. How easy is it for you to get service? I realize that they do need to check all the silly things first, but I feel that if they can see the modem isn't working, they should get a flag at their end and be preemptive about repairs.
I think most service providers are reluctant to send service personnel because it costs them time and money, plus material at times, when in their minds, believe this is one of those easily solvable problems. Since so many calls has to do with "My internet stopped working suddenly" which eventually lead to finding out it was because the cable was unplugged. Indeed, this isn't the case all the time, but after customer service reps get enough of these, it gets drilled into their minds. It's annoying but at the same time, I can't be too irritated at them for being human. If we get robots answering our support calls, maybe we can get things done a lot easier. I use Shaw Cable as my internet, phone and television provider. Based on your picture, you look like someone who lives in the Metro Vancouver area, but I could be wrong. Shaw Cable is not too bad, but at times, they can be just as reluctant to send support staff out. At the very least, they are thorough.
I've been into similar situation too. Service representative would always instruct me to unplug my cable for 10 seconds blah blah blah but to no avail. Having been through this many times, I try to fix it first before calling the SR. By the time everything fails, I call them and just instruct them to send out technician to fix my internet problem. Most of the time they would obliged. It takes about a day before they can send out their technician, which means another day with slow internet connection. One thing more I hate about their service is their fair usage policy. There is 15 GB limit every month. Once you reach that limit, you have to wait until the end of the month for your connection to be restored. How is that fair really? I'm from the Philippines by the way and I'm connected to the "best" network provider here.
What internet provider is this? Sometimes they can't really see what you're seeing on your end, all they see is the log files at their end, and I've been on that end before, and it can be frustrating. Sometimes they do need to send a technician out to fix it, and sometimes it could be as simple as rebooting the modem. With DSL, there can be interference and line glitches too.
