I am probably going to get kicked out the United States for saying this, but I think private companies are the worst possible stewards of our information infrastructure. Our household was without DSL for five days. Five days. If you’re a writer who works mainly on the Internet, communicates via email with 95% of friends and family, and, well, enjoys and prefers reading online publications, five days is ridiculously long.
While I believe everyone on the customer service food chain for our telephone company was sincere in their desire to do something, overall, the response was abysmal. I’m sorry, but if you’re going to outsource your support to India, stop with the scripts already and give the call center staff some ability to actually resolve problems. It isn’t the off-shoring that is the problem: it is the resultant frustration because problems aren’t being resolved. Five days is too long for any utility to be out of commission, barring a major natural disaster.