[clue-tech] DSL providers

[William]

Hex Star wrote: 
> What's wrong with cable for small offices/home offices? Bandwidth 
> garuntees? DSL by far has more of a problem with bandwidth garuntees 
> then cable:
>  
> 1) I first seeked DSL for my broadband connection and chose AT&T (SBC 
> at the time) since they have the most coverage here while not charging 
> an arm and a leg
>  
> 2) Their webpage said internet access was availible in our area
>  
> 3) We applied, got a modem
>  
> 4) Internet access was slow and spotty
>  
> 5) We called support and after lots of run arounds they determined 
> that our phone wasn't of optimal quality for DSL and neither was our 
> distance from the central office
>  
> 6) There was rumor of a local central office from some techs but 
> others had no idea...still a mystery to this day
>  
> 6a) While we still had the DSL I checked the site again to see if it 
> still said dsl was availible in our area and it no longer said 
> so...what the hell???
>  
> 7) We've cancelled our service since we were getting dialup speeds 
> through our DSL connection and moved to Comcast
>  
> 8) Comcast support was friendly, no wait time, and very knowladgeble 
> (may be based on area)
>  
> 9) Comcast delivers promised fast speeds without hassle
>
>  
>
> If you think a service that can fluctuate just because of a little 
> phone line noise and decreases as you are distanced from the central 
> office is more reliable then cable internet which doesn't get slower 
> as you are distanced from the central office and isn't as picky about 
> line noise then I guess it's your choice...Qwest is also amazingly 
> more expensive then either AT&T or Comcast but if you have a lot of 
> extra cash to through around then I guess whatever works...
>  
> As for more control...what more control does dsl offer? If anything it 
> offers less control
It seems that you are damning all DSL for one bad experience from a big 
company that didn't provide good service.  I'm sorry for your bad luck, 
but please don't hold that angst against the rest of us.  I'll try to 
address your questions more specifically, but I will be less inclined to 
respond further due to the emotional pull this has generated with you.

It sounds like you were on the outer edge of the DSL PoP's coverage area 
and your copper line may have been of poor quality as the ISP suggested 
(very old lines tend to be poor data carriers for several reasons like:  
insufficient gage to carry the full DSL carrier signals).  Slow and 
spotty performance is a given in this situation and the ISP should not 
have teased you with a service offer.  It sounds like they retracted the 
offer when your installation failed, which could be because you were the 
first DSL customer in that neighborhood and they just didn't know -- but 
I won't make excuses for them.

Had you been closer to the PoP and had good copper lines, your 
experience would have been very different.

The level of customer service you report when dealing with Comcast is 
typical of small ISPs like FRII.  Please don't assume that Comcast is an 
exception, or that this level of service is typical within Comcast.  
Other posters have reported poorer service levels and I have endured 
long wait times myself when trying to help friends who use Comcast's 
Cable Broadband service.  In my experience, I had to call back several 
times on the same issue before it was finally dismissed by Comcast as 
being a problem related to using Norton Anti-Virus.  No one was happy 
with the answer or the hassle, so your experience is exceptional.

Your experience with fluctuating DSL service was related to factors 
previously identified.  Anyone within the true PoP service area is, in 
fact, guaranteed a consistent bandwidth rate.  This is the nature of 
DSL.  For example, I enjoy 1.5Mbps/750Kbps down/up.  This rate never 
fluctuates.  I don't fall to 1Mbps or less when my neighbors start 
watching on-line video feeds.  This is the guarantee that Cable cannot 
make for reasons given in my previous post.

To your question of cost, I believe you are overstating the facts.  I 
pay a combined total of about $60 per month for my line from Quest and 
my Internet access with FRII.  This includes my "perks" -- 
business-level service and an 8-IPA static subnet along with some 
hosting goodies.  I'm certainly not throwing money around unless you 
count my splurging on bonus service features.  :)

As for control, I get my own DNS and RDNS control.  I have full blessing 
to run any number of servers (in fact, I run several in something of a 
lab environment at home which has been massively reorganized as I 
experiment with myriad configurations), which is a critical 
consideration for (as I said previously) "substantial SOHOs".  My ISP 
provides transparent Internet access -- no port blocking, no e-mail 
sniffing (which Comcast does, as I encountered head-on in the 
aforementioned Comcast support issue).  I have no bandwidth consumption 
cap, whatsoever.  This is control given to the end-user which most Cable 
providers do not provide.  This isn't merely control, but also freedom.

Now this conversation has moved away from interesting networking theory 
exploration to banner-waving.  Unless you want to discuss more technical 
matters, I'll be signing off this thread here. 

Thank you for your time,

William


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