Linksys Skype Phone, Strike Two

Amazon took back my defective CIT400 Skype phone, and sent me a new one - they even covered shipping - they rock. Linksys, you rosuck.

The new phone arrived; I plugged it in (in defense of Linksys, the setup is easy, it only takes about 10 minutes to set the phone up), and it worked. An hour later, I went to make a call, it was hosed again. Exactly the same way as the first one was (a series of beeps when trying to go off hook, "UNAVAILABLE" when trying to view contacts).

I figured I'd give tech support another try; not by phone, I learned my lesson there. I sent them an email:

I have a brand new CIT400. It worked fine for the first 2 hours, now I'm not able to do anything with it. If I try to go off hook (land line), I get a beep beep beep sound. If I try to view contacts, it says "UNAVAILABLE".

As I said, it worked fine for 2 hours. The phone says my skype status is online. I can ping the base station (192.168.1.103); I can also view the web pages for the phone.

They responded in the promised 4 hour window, with this:

I understand you have problems getting busy tone on the CIT400. I suggest upgrading the Operarting [sic] System of the CIT400 and observe if it fixes the problem. Make sure also that the contact you're trying to dial is not in use and this will result hearing a busy tone on the CIT400.

Uhm, thanks for the phone tutorial. I didn't realize that I couldn't call someone who was already on the phone. How about if they have call waiting?

I think not... I'm not getting a busy signal - I get a series of beeps. I said that in my original email. Ok, you can't read. That's fine. Do you know your product? What operating system should I upgrade? The one on my computer? No, I don't think so - my computer is not attached to the phone.

What? You meant that I should upgrade the firmware for the phone? Ok, fuckhead, where do I get new firmware? Did you look on your website to see if firmware was available? No, I thought not. There is none. I can download one of three manuals (none of which say what to do when the phone says it's "UNAVAILABLE" yet still talking to the base station.

Does anyone know someone at Cisco I can discuss their incompetence with?

On an unrelated note.. I'm now wondering if the problem with the phone is that it can't handle when someone (me) sends it a ping... Time will tell - it's been sitting home alone all day, if it's not hung when I get home tonight, I'll send it a ping and see if it gets hosed again.