Verizon SUCKS but DSL back up for now.

Well. I am back up somewhat.
It's a strange strange story. Symptoms are at end.

I now have 14 tickets from Verizon Online. All closed.

I have had 5 technician visit my home.
3 were inside technicians, and 2 wiring technicians
I have had 4 technicians test my Inside wiring (to the demarc)
as well as from Inside my garage (demarc) to my side, and
from Outside of my garage (their side) both ways,

All techs have found "something" on the line, towards the Central Office (CO).
one reported it was a cross (line cross-connected) somewhere towards the CO.
One reported there was a problem towards the CO.

Diagnosis from techs? Problem is NOT on my side, but in the cable to the Central office. We've had about 6 inches of rain in the past 3 weeks here. Tech's explained that most likely my cable had been "water-logged"

What has been done?
One tech requested that cable technicians come out and move my service to a different
"tie cable" (my term) that goes from the main cable vault to the CO.
Two cable techs visited at different times, no trouble found, and closed.
One very personable tech (He'll be promoted to management of course. That's the Peter Principle at work!)

At any rate, this technician did the following:
1) tested from demarc
2) tested from my DSL modem (no difference in signals)
3) Tested from outside demarc
4) moved my service to a different cable to the CO.
5) verified the wiring at the demarc to my DSLmodem.
6) ordered a new DSL modem for me
7) verified that my service is within (barely) the 18,000 foot DSL limitation.

SO: Why Am I up? Did 1-7 work?
No. It's simply DRY outside, as in the SUN dried out the cable.

MY guess?
They need to replace my "aerial" cable.. That is the cable from the telephone pole to my house. Of course in my case, it isn't over head, but buried in my street, until the telephone pole at the corner. So there are TWO more places left to investigate.
One. the Run from the POLE to the underground box on MY property. Two, the cable from the underground box to my outside demarc.

What I'd like them to do?
Cable me a temporary cable OVER the ground, from my underground box to my house ON TOP of the GRASS.

If it seems to go away, 2-3 days later BURY the cable. (and bury the problem too!)


Symptoms of my outage...
When online:
DSL (Westell 6100 modem) shows a connection on the dslmodem internal home page
Main page shows connection up/down : PPP Status --> UP
status page shows duration: Conn. Duration Status #Reconnects
02:42:46 UP 0

Note that the time above (connection duration: is Two hours, 42 mins, 46 seconds)
THIS is the number I watch when re-connecting.

THIS is the number that until today has NOT been above 8 minutes at ALL!
If I hit reset, or refresh, the number will NOT increase.
Other symptom. Downloads (a virus-definition download for example downloads at 2kps
that's slower than a 56K modem downloads at!

I think we're close to resolving this problem if we can ONLY get together on the problem.