I filed my case on the 22nd of Nov. I am planning on giving it 75 days (until 5th Feb) and open a SR or take an infopass for interim EAD. I dont think it helps in anyway to call them before that, as they will ask you to wait for 75 days anyways. Also, my past experience (with my earlier EAD) tells me that your EAD will be approved in time (even if it is in the last min). I think they have some kind of mechanism to identify the urgent cases with a week's expiry as threshold or something...
Also, I heard from few friends here in Baltimore, MD that NSC stopped updating the statuses online since the past month... Users are getting approvals etc., directly in mail (be it H1B extension or EAD renewal) and the case status doesnt change online. So, I am hoping that I will see an approval by the end of the month.
What are your plans??