However I do wish to share my experiences with Qwest ADSL. A quote from the review:

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"Unfortunately, getting a DSL installed is much like a descent into hell."

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There was a problem with my phone line, though. The previous owners had added a high frequency filter to the copper line coming into the house for some unknown reason. The DSL data operates on the high frequencies of the line, so that prohibited the DSL from working. I called Qwest and they sent some guy out in less than an hour, and he removed the device from the line. No charge. Also, I only had to deal with one company (Qwest). If you have to deal with 3 different companies to get functional DSL I would just suggest using Sprints new satellite thingy which includes ISP and all that for $49 a month (plus above T1 speeds for downloading!) I have seen it and download speeds were typically 1650k per second from good servers. Upload speed was only 650k, about a 3rd of T1 speed.

Oh, and something else from the review:

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"ADSL is significantly less useful than SDSL because the upstream traffic is substantially slower than the downstream traffic, due to technological and bureaucratic limitations."

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My DSL has gone down twice, but never while I was using it. On both instances I have walked into the room and noticed that the green "LNK" light on the router was off. It is supposed to be on 24/7. Did I call Qwest? Nope. I just unplugged the router for 7 seconds and plugged it back in. The router rebooted itself and established a LNK connection right away. I have had no costumer service issues or other problems at all with Qwest.

But now I am a little more interested in that Sprint dish thingy.

Pretty damn good for ADSL!

But upspeed IS definitely slower.
Of course you can get a plan where up and down speeds are identical, if that's what one wants.

Now I'm wondering if this topic will be moved to another forum. Most review comments are posted in this forum, so I decided "Why the hell not?!"

Some ADSL configurations can run over existing voice lines. When it works, this is fine; when it doesn't, it results in lots of finger-pointing between the ILEC and CLEC about what broke and who is responsible for fixing it.

In your case, it sounds like "load coils" had to be removed from your line. These things improve the quality of voice calls, yet make a line totally useless for DSL (which requires "dry" copper).

The dish thing isn't necessarily a bad idea for certain applications, but it isn't really comparable to land-line connections. The major problem with IP connectivity provided via satellite is that the latency (response time) is generally in the 500ms range, which is quite horrible, and which tends to make any sort of interactive application (telnet, ssh, most games, etc.) feel even slower than it would over a standard dialup PPP line. For large downloads it would be fine. For running a DNS server, it would be totally worthless.

As for the ADSL vs. SDSL thing -- they are two totally different technologies. ADSL was developed in the late 1980s for providing TV programming over telephone lines; this is obviously heavily bandwidth-intensive, but in one direction only. When the phone companies found that they couldn't really compete with the cable-TV companies, they later adapted the technology for data networks. In any case, the ADSL technology itself limits upstream speeds to somewhat less than downstream, though the exact degree to which this is so is configurable. 256Kbps != 2Mbps, however...

There are a couple of advantages to SDSL: first, it is ordinarily sold with a service guarantee, which would be very important to any business. Second, it is a more reliable technology (it uses the same encoding scheme as T1 lines), and tends to offer lower latency than higher-speed ADSL connections. Obviously, the individual user will have to determine his own priorities.

Personally, I have some philosophical "issues" with asymmetric connectivity of any form. In case anyone cares, I've attempted to explain why I feel this way. In retrospect, that rant comes off as looking a bit reactionary and somewhat muddled, but the major points are still significant. Someone else wrote a pretty decent article that addresses similar points as well, and probably in a better way than I was able to do.

But still, Qwest gave me the data in megabits, so my second post is definitely true.
 

Oh, and did I mention the billing issues? No, I do believe I have forgotten about that. For the first EIGHT MONTHS I had the service they billed me for TWO DSL LINES. Of course they didn't even bill me for the proper service rate either. They had originally signed me up for some $100/month service, when the $30/month service was all that I was needing and most importantly, all that I was actually transmitting and receiving at! Every month I had to call up and raise the dead to get the charges pulled. The 9th month they finally got it right, but the 10th month they were back to overbilling again...this time with THREE DSL LINES! Yes, Qwest sucks, and they suck really bad.

Joe you lucky bastard!

 

But honestly though, it sounds like if there is a problem (with Qwest) during your initial hookup, the problem will haunt you forever, no matter what. I signed up after Brad did. And I know Qwest has changed a few things. What they have changed I can't exactly put my finger on, but another friend of mine has had DSL for a few years and he had a few problems that Brad also had. They once sent out a technician to put a floppy disc into his computer and tried to charge him for that. But the half-assedness can go both ways. Qwest sent him, on a two different occasions, a new modem and never asked for the old one back. The technician with the floppy disc also left behind a modem. He now has three or four functioning modems. He also had Qwest increase his upload speed, which they did. This was looooong ago. To this day, they have never billed him or increased his monthly rate for that speed increase. What goes around comes around (hopefully).
 

I didn't think your "Asymmetric connectivity rant" was really ranting, but I do think it's a bit early to worry about. Taken to an extreme, yes, but I don't think it a big problem....yet.

I totally agree about ISP not allowing even low-usage servers and only allowing dynamic IP's. If ISP's are OK with more download bandwidth, then what's the big deal with preventing a person from having a server showing their pictures at Grandma's house last Christmas?

(Not quite related, but) Years ago, a company I worked for installed some electronic telephone switching equipment in France to replace a step-by-step mechincal system. Even though the electronic system had features like 3-way calling, call waiting, etc. it could not be used. The reason was: unless the same service was provided to everyone equally, it could not be used at all, and there were still some users with mechincal systems. I guess those French phone guys didn't want their heads chopped off....
 

I can definitely forsee a day in the next 10 years or so when you can get a "consumer-grade" asymmetric connection with super-fast download speed and heavily capped upload speed for maybe $30/month, while a connection with reasonable upload speed might cost $500-1000 per month. The fact that much of the "last mile" infrastructure (cable and DSL) is being bought up by companies that consider themselves to be in the "content provider" business (AOL/TW, ATT, etc.) is worrisome, as the last thing that they would want is competition on the "content" side. We'll see, I guess.
 

Brad signed up for DSL when US West was converting to Qwest. May have been part of the problem.
 

Around here in Moose Pasture, we refer to the telco as US-Wurst, not to be confused with knackwurst. Nothing became any better when they changed the name. I've had hi-speed cable modem internet out of at&t@home for some time now and mostly it's been very good. When started they offered me a deal I couldn't refuse.

It works quite well for everything I do, which most of you guys might find to be a frightful bore.

In the overall picture what's most remarkable about the Internet is that it all works as well as it does most of the time. ALL providers break down at one time or another, it's just a case of whose turn it is.

RELAX und vatchin' das Blinken Lites!

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Perhaps Qwest feels that they can rip off people who live in Highlands Ranch. You are considered white trash if you pull in less than 2 mill a year! Lakewood (where I am) you are considered rich as hell if you can make change for a twenty.

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Joe, this is the best description of Highlands Ranch, I have heard.

We use Pac-Bell ADSL at our theatre. If you think Quest is bad, wait till you experience Pac-Bell. But that said, our DSL experience was smooth as butta. We placed our order about four weeks before we took over the theatre and they just came and installed it. There were no problems. The only odd thing was that they sent three different installers to install three different lines. One guy brought the lines into the building and then he left. The next gal installed the internal phone lines but not the DSL. The third guy installed the DSL line and said that it was all compartmentalized at Pac-Bell.?!

We did switch all our long distance service to Quest because, so far they are the cheapest by far. Every time some salesman calls up from Sprint, or AT&T they tell me about their great plan, then I tell them what I'm paying and they say they can't match it.
 

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We placed our order about four weeks before we took over the theatre and they just came and installed it.

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