When I got home and tried to sign on, same thing as before. I went ahead and reset, reconnected everything and then worked my way into the diagnostics. I've done it often enough now I definitely don't need prompts. The modem was up, but I didn't have an IP address. Same thing as the other two times. I called Verizon and after I put in my DSL number, the recording said I'd had a ticket resolved on the 18th and I could either reset both computer and modem to fix them or hang up. I hit 0 about five times and finally got more prompts and a tech. This tech looked up the trouble tickets, believed me, and was ready to pass me to a senior tech when my cellphone went dead. It took me a minute to connect it to the charger and by then he had left a message for me -- he was going to call the phone on the DSL line. I don't have a phone on the DSL line. I have been keeping a phone in the house for emergencies so I got that connected and waited 10 minutes and he didn't call back.
I called again, this time the recording said my ticket was resolved today so I hit lots of 0s again and got another tech. This one was sure the problem was the modem. No. Then the jack. No. I kept telling him just to get it fixed at their end, but he would only give me another trouble ticket and I'll hear from someone in 24-48 hours. I told him to cancel my account. He argued with me that I should give it a third try and I finally agreed. At the end, he asked me if he had given me excellent service and I said "NO!" and he said "thank you" and we hung up. This is the last time. If it dies again in a few days, I'm done.
Complicating matters was that we passed the 4pm hour while I was with techs and the cats have excellent time sense when it comes to dry food time. They kept yelling at me and climbing on me, which was not helpful.