so far so good. No drops at all and smooth sailing. If I end up with no more drops by tomorrow, I am going to assume the router side of the dsl modem is the issue.
One of the techs had told me that there was a firmware issue with the PK5001Z modem that caused it to sporadically re-request an IP at random intervals. Yet another tech told me that tech was full of it.
perhaps he wasn't...
It's working for now with no issues. thanks a ton to all that helped.