Tech showed up at 4 on the nose. He started running tests from the NID as soon as he got there. I can't remember which one he was running (I think it was SELT), but it was about the 4th test, and is a 2-part test. The port on the VRAD locked up at that one...so everything went down.
He called in and got a helper ticket to have my port changed (which he thought was bad from the start) and said that I'd basically be without service until the next day when someone could come reset the card. Great.
Well, miraculously, my service came back on about 30 minutes later, so that was good.
The next morning rolled along and another tech showed up and said that the card had been reset at about 4am, because it takes all customers down. He also said that he'd swapped my port. He then began to explain to me that I would always see pixelation because I was too far from the VRAD, and asked me if I wanted to downgrade my internet plan. Really?
Anyhow, still showing some FEC, but nowhere near as bad as it was. Fingers crossed that the issue may be resolved for a while.
On a side note, I did find out that I'm on an "F" card. The tech said that they should be coming through soon to change over to a "K" card that would increase the max distance from the VRAD for service, and also enable the speed increases that are supposed to be coming this year. He told me the new speeds were supposed to be available on March 15.