So I had given the context as in paragraph 2 in the OP on the phone with the provider office tech in the morning with the result being their sending a tech to zap tests at the outside and inside wiring. I went on record that all that had been done a couple of times in the past, asking what was different now since the telephone company had laid a new outside cable and I had bought an inside phone wire and a new router. They said their meter reading showed I was only getting 1 something of current now whereas the past readings had been 10 or something and peak is supposed to be 25 or something. Fine. So then the usual scheduling six hours later in the day. I said so I would be able to leave for errands and be back for that time, fine.
The previous young tech who sold me the new router and answered some questions about fiber optic lacked a phone short wire to test the jack and I had a brand new one that had come with something that was too short to reach the router, so he eagerly used mine. At the end of the visit, I noticed my short wire (that I didn't need anyway) was gone, the kid having taken it with him on auto-pilot (I'm sure). He had had a slightly smarty edge to him, asking, "Do you *know* what fiber optic *is*?" I said all I needed to know was that it was better than DSL.
So this new young tech was more down to earth without attitude and went through the same old paces outside box, inside jack, handling the router. I noticed he had his own short phone wire for his meter test thing for the jack, but otherwise I don't know enough about whatever and just let workers do their thing without observing what they're doing. So with my recitation of all the context of the past service calls, he was particularly interested in my point that I had back then tried to buy a new jack and found out from the mother phone company that jacks are obsolete, not used by the phone company any more and that eBay if anything might only be a source. This means that the information I provide turns out to shape what the technician's eventual conclusion will be.
So, after I interrogated about 5G vs fiber optic, my telling what I had learned, that my phone provider's 5G comes via towers and his telling me that his fiber optic is via satellite, I told him I would go with the fiber. His company has the fiber branch but he didn't try to hard sell, said I could try the current status with the router until problems developed again. I said that the past few months with this new router were already my trying-out period. So his conclusion was: Ta-DA, that with all my context, the problem was probably THE JACK of course. The unreplaceable jack. Of course. So I told him to go ahead and put in for the fiber optic. Fine.
So all this time since this morning the internet was solid. Saying he was going to give everything a fast look "to make sure everything is covered," he did that and left. Fine. -----------Can you see it coming? As soon as he was gone -----------------ta-DA, the thing went down, no internet same as this morning. It had been an anxious and tiring day, and resigned myself to doing without my main activity (internet, YouTube) until calling the DSL tomorrow and who knows when the fiber optic will be done. So I went for a nap. Another little irritant occurred that had to be taken care of before napping, so that happened. Finally the nap.
Rousing, went to check out the router again, unplugging and plugging to the power. Nothing. It had been about four hours with only the phone connected with a night to come without YouTube history video to sleep through. Sat pondering for awhile, then thought about the only thing I hadn't tried: I saw the tech unplug the phone wire from the jack and check the jack. So went to the jack on the outside chance the wire might not be plugged in enough. It was plugged, the only way it could be.
***************Came back to my chair and sat there awhile and THEN saw the other end of the phone wire dangling from my printer! The kid had forgotten to plug it in to the router! My next low tech problem was where to plug it to the router. Looking at the back of the router there was only one slot it would fit and it was labelled DSL! Bingo! Plugged but internet lights didn't go on for about 15 minutes. Was thinking again about the call tomorrow. Finally the lights went on.
*** I've worried about what seems to be increasing "auto pilot" - misplacing things, but I'm old. So it turns out younger ones do the same: Carpenters leave hammers behind, these two techs took a wire and didn't plug in the router wire, the latter despite having checked "to make sure I covered everything."
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