I tried to get my static IPv4 and IPv6 addresses from Comcast the other day. The customer rep asked me what I meant by "static IP address." And I'm like--wait, how much do I actually explain about what a static IP is? I might as well have been talking to the cat that hangs out on my porch, but that cat was the only one who could kick me up to someone who knew what she was talking about...

It's rather sad that customer support for an ISP would not know what a static IP is. Then again, they're probably usually telling more "average" users to reset their modems and asking if things are turned on and plugged in...

They usually don't need to know what a static IP address is. A good rep will know that this is above their league and connect you right to somebody who knows what you mean. The availability of such a person depends on the quality of the customer service.

Oh, you have no idea.

I worked for a large telco and the new Manager of IT had to stop her first "all hands" meeting to ask what IPv6 is.

Seriously.

You probably didn't get on Comcast forums and start being a passive aggressive all-caps jerk about it, though.

Did they give you static addresses? I would love one, but figure it would be a no.

Their residential fiber service gives you two hand offs, each with 1 static IPv4 and a /48 block of IPv6. Support goes through their residential line until they kick you over to the Metro Ethernet team, so the initial interactions are pretty funny. ("Uh, I can't see your cable modem, is it plugged in?")

If you still haven't gotten your IP assignments yet, you will probably have a lot more luck contacting the "Small Property Account Specialist" who (in my case at least) was the one who guides through finding out whether your location can do gigabit pro. It's also worth practicing the magic lines that get you to metro E support. I've been using "can I speak to fiber optic internet support".

Yes, I finally emailed her and got them right away.

> kick me up to someone who knew what she was talking about...

Obligatory reference: https://xkcd.com/806/, which the other day I had occasion to pass along to a really-great [seriously] AT&T U-Verse TSR who'd never heard of it (XKCD). This one is in the running for greatest XKCD of all time.

I had never seen this one, thanks for sharing.

I had an issue with AWS. First, I went to our contracted AWS support company.

<rant> They are completely clueless, you can tell that they a bunch of on prem net ops people who took a class in AWS and just translated our AWS architecture to exactly what they would have done on prem. This was before either my AWS savvy manager or I were hired. You ask them about anything that involves anything about AWS besides EC2 instances, security groups and subnets they just shrug. I’ve spent the last few months cleaning up things to try to save the company money. </rant>

Then I went to AWS directly. Thier online chat might as well been a chatbot. They just regurgitated the FAQ.