Urgh!

Did you know that AT&T won't investigate whether a DSL system outtage exists until they have at least 10 complaints? After finally having crossed that particular little threshold, and ascertaining that my original complaint was indeed legit, the very congenial tech support staffers at AT&T (who, I must say were not only very polite and genuinely helpful, but they answered the phone on the first ring almost every time), informed me, by way of a very esoteric technical explanation, that the two and a half days of system failure was due to "a card" that needed replacement.