Funny ... I was reading a short in Strategy+Business yesterday on
international competition (competition of national economies) talking
about how connectivity and tech generally was better/faster/etc in US
competitors. Wasn't terribly specific, but had points from EU.

I ran into a similar issue to you when first getting DSL from PacHell
several years ago. It took over 6 days and 12 hours on the phone to go
from green light on the DSL TU to actual round-trip ping because of a
routing table problem. Pain was that I knew what the problem was from
the start (I used to be a packet switch and telco developer in a prior
life), but it took me approx. 10 hours on the phone to reach the right
engineer.

Fast-forward. I now use a service started by a couple of ex IT folks
who probably read Nick Carr and turned their lack of mattering to an
opportunity, started their own small ISP business. And they're very
very good. Won't help you in the UK, though - they're only in coastal
northern california.

Good luck.

glen


webmink wrote:
> My Pipex DSL service failed around midnight last night. Pipex are
> quoting me *six days* to get it resolved. Can anyone recommend a DSL
> servcie provider in the UK that will offer actual support rather than
> scripted customer abuse when I call?