On your phone 1-800-318-2596 spells 1-800-F1U-CKYO. https://www.healthcare.gov/contact-us/ I'm guessing no; that number will stick around for a while.

I too used to work for Speakeasy, roughly 1.5 years ago before they were bought out. If your connection drops down to 0.1 or 0.2 at night then I would call your ISP when you're having the issue and request that they run a loop length test (aka plugged/unplugged test. This is the test where they have you unplug your modem for a couple of minutes, then plug it back in but with the power unplugged on the modem). Have them compare the results to when you first signed up for service. Theoretically they should know what to do from here, based on the results of the test, but if they don't then I would ask them what the results were and whether it's reporting any issues like metallic noise on the line, tip to ring, tip to ground, etc. I'd also ask them if they've installed any bridgetaps on the line, and if so, if they can remove them as this can impact service. If they don't find an issue on the line than I would ask them if their backhaul is currently over-saturated, and if it is, to be switched to another backhaul. They can often view this information by logging into Cacti or some other bandwidth monitoring program they use to see the current usage. Anywho, I glanced at this article and this guy does a pretty good job at explaining how DSL works and what some of the common issues are: http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=113143 Hope this helps!

""The second is to reform the corporate structure of larger companies to include some directors elected by consumers, rather than just shareholders. Not all the directors, like in the Cooperative Group, and not even a majority, but just a small portion of the board — say one third."" Why is this crap hitting the front page? Can we please just move articles like these over to socialistdot.org?

Another duplicate article: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/08/07/0847201/Comcast-Launching-995-Low-Income-Broadband-Plan

This article is from 2009. Why is this now hitting the front page?

on the shuttle Atlantis".

I sense this being a future article that will appear on Slashdot in the next few days!

I worked for a local ISP that provided service through a major provider's network for a year and power cycling the modem did fix a majority of connection issues. The user's wouldn't be connected to our RADIUS server, we'd use a tool to see if they were connected to the telephone provider's DSLAM, and if they weren't connected then power cycling the modem would often solve the issue. Frequent callers tended to be out in the woods or where the DSL signal sucked, their house wiring was old, or other similar factors. If power cycling the modem didn't resolve the issue, a tech is then dispatched by the phone company to try and find out where the problem was located at (often house wiring, or 'user error' in their home setup). As the other guy said, most of the people who call in don't know anything about computers (somehow the keyboard being unplugged was our fault on a few calls, or at least they wanted me to explain how it happened 'to' them).