said by lord_slappy 
:I did ask the guy to run it under the siding on my house. He said that sometimes that can pinch the cable, but he did it for me anyway. I also requested a little bit bigger service loop underneath so I could run it back through the wall myself later (saves me a $50 charge). Could either of these requests have put me in this situation?
Thanks for your help everyone.
Short answer is yes, either one of those could have put you in that situation. It sounds like the modem is dropping synch but is able to reset itself and regain it. It may also be an issue with the actual electric power getting to the modem. Just for grins to see if that is the issue, try plugging your modem direct into a wall outlet instead of a power sttrip for a while and see if that changes the results.
