It is no secret that people using Telstra's ADSL service constantly have to call
up the helpdesk in order to report the regular problems that plague the network. 
What is incredibly frustrating for a lot of users is that no matter how much the 
problem is likely to be at their end, the staff memeber on the helpdesk who takes 
your call ALWAYS has to go through a checklist before escalating your call.

Now, as a Network Engineer, this frustrates me a lot. It shouldn't be terribly 
difficult for someone who almost has a Telecommunications Engineering degree and 
who sets up large scale WANs as a part of their every day job to be sure that the 
problem does not lie on the network that I run at home. Unfortunately (and 
understandably), the helpdesk representative has no idea of knowing this and therefore, 
they must go through the same checklist with me as with everyone else.

Until now. Announcing a little verbal script that I have written that is 
guarunteed to get your call escalated immediately*. By saying the following 
paragraph, you should be able to bypass every element on the helpdesk staff member's 
checklist quickly and easily:

I am experienceing timeouts connecting to the ADSL network. I have rebooted my machine, 
rebooted the ADSL modem, and checked that the modem is properly plugged in. There is 
a link light showing on the back of the modem, and both the Power and Line Sync LEDs 
are on on the modem. The Transmit Data LED occasionally flashes as does the LAN LED. 
I have plugged the modem into a second PC and get the same connection timeout error 
on that machine. I have also queried all available services, and no services show up.

Why does this work? Well, from what I can gather, the helpdesk checklist goes along these lines:

» Check user has restarted computer.
»Check user has restarted ADSL modem.
» Ensure that power light on the ADSL modem is on.
» Ensure that ADSL modem shows that the Line is Synchronised (Line sync LED is on).
» Check that there is a link LED is on, on the back of the ADSL modem, signifying that 
there is an active Ethernet link between the ADSL modem and the computer connected to the modem.
» Check that the problem does not lie in the (clumsy) Telstra authentication software. Re-install if necessary.
» Query ADSL services to check if any are available. If one is available, reset user's 
account (the user has a locked session preventing access to the network).
» Check that the problem does not lie in the TCP/IP stack installed on the system. re-install TCP/IP if necessary.

The last step is the absolute killer for most people. I do not think that it is reasonable 
for an ISP to force a user to go to those lengths before first investigating the problem on 
their end, especially considering how unreliable their network can be at times.

But regardless, I have used the above script 5 times now, and have even got one helpdesk 
representative to mention that by doing all of that, I had been rather thorough, 
and that there was nothing else he could do but escalate my call.

*Guarantee not serious... But it should work!