I often the most reliable source is other users.
Never forget that a few years ago there was a major fault in Inverness exchange affecting the whole North of Scotland but no one was aware because the BT call centre was logging complaints but nothing was done about them because the fault did not raise an alarm because of the fault.
All data networks work on the old principle that if the computer says it is OK then everything is OK. I experienced ths myself when we had major faults at work after lightning, one place was off for over a day (a different telecom company). An 'engineer' came out late in the evening and told me at nearly midnight that it was fixed, I explained that there was still no data coming out of their bay but his computer said it was OK and he believed that rather then check the actual equipment.
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