I excitedly set up the modem, but no luck. The modem worked properly as a NAT box, but no internet connectivity. The green DSL light just sat there blinking. I moved the modem down to the basement where the demarc is, disconnected everything else from line one and had the modem be the only thing there. Still no luck.

Feeling somewhat frustrated, I called Verizon tech support. They had me power cycle the modem and reset it to factory settings, but I had already tried both of those. They then told me that while they would normally escalate the problem to the repair team, because it was before the official service ready date they wouldn't, and I should just wait.

This wouldn't be that bad, if it was not exactly what happened a year and a half ago. We went through the same process, and after a week or so they decided that the house was too far away to get DSL. My dad called back recently to see if things had changed, and they said they'd upgraded their systems since then and all of Medford was covered. But I think it's likely the same thing is wrong as before.