Anyone using U-Verse?

Slight rant, with a happy ending. 

About a year ago we switched from Comcast cable internet to AT&T U-Verse when in became available in our area.  Cheaper, faster, more channels, and a faster upload speed which is really important for Vonage phones. 

Well about 6 weeks ago we started dropping the internet connection 10-15 times a day (that I noticed) for about 5 minutes at a shot.  Since everything goes through our internet connection that means we lost phones and TV at the same time. 

The first tech came out and switched what port our house was plugged in to at the street.  It was better, but still bad.  The next tech unhooked the voice line from our house at the street since we didn't need it.  No improvement. 

The third tech came out and just from the symptoms thought it was the connections inside the wall.  He popped off the plate, switched out the connection there, and switched out one in the attic.  Problem solved.  He was there for about 20 minutes compared to 5 or 6 hours each on the other two guys.  But he actually knew what was wrong, fixed it, and tested it afterwards to make sure it was working instead of just telling me "it should be better now". 

Broadband. I can only dream of it. 40 miles from the 4th largest city in the US and we can't even get cable or DSL. Luckily work has a T1 and a realistic use policy.

LOL, I guess you could say my work has a realistic use policy.  We are allowed to get on any site that isn't blocked.  Blocked sites are:  myspace, youtube, victoria's secret, and disneyland.com (go figure).  There are probably a bunch of porn sites that are blocked, but me and my three coworkers are all girls and haven't tested that out
I seriously have A LOT of downtime as a wedding coordinator, so we do a lot of internet surfing.

I live in the 13th largest metro area in the U.S.  We are lucky to have a lot of internet choices, but even with all the competition I still thinks it's way pricey.