[ale] OT- Transition to fast access

[Geoffrey]

Armsby John-G16665 wrote:
 > All,
 >
 > I apologize for being off topic BUT I need to get off dial up.  Since
 > I live in Dacula, outside of Atlanta, dslreports shows I am 36,000
 > from the CO.

I assume you're in BellSouth's area, so regardless of your dsl provider, 
BellSouth is the one who will connect you.  Go to their website and 
there's a place where you can enter your phone number to see if dsl is 
available in your area.  If it is, then start talking to Earthlink.  The 
dslreports data is not always accurate.  For me, it was not, had me 
associated with hardware up in Cherokee County, when in fact, I'm 
actually connected right here in my subdivision.
 >
 > I have a few questions...
 >
 > 1.  Can I assume that (Earthlink) dsl is a complete waste of time?
 > For $50/month I would like a decent speed.

Unfortunately, you don't know till you try.  There's all kind of 
variables involved, so until you actually get it connected you'll never 
know.  That's why NO dsl provider will give you a minimum guarantee, 
just the 'up to 3 trillion gigabytes per second' marketing dribble.

I just set up a friend of mine who went with Earthlink.  No $$ up front 
as he requested a 'self install' option.  They shipped him the goods, 
and we set it up yesterday.  He's cooking now.

 >
 > 2.  Charter Communications supports my area.  If I go with cable, is
 > there anything special I have to do when I want to connect the modem
 > to a Linksys switch/hub, enabling internal network access?  Do I have
 > to register the mac address of the Ethernet card with the provider
 > and then change it if I insert the Linksys unit?

I've not dealt with the cable folks, so I don't know about this issue. 
Seems to me, network cards DO go bad, and you should be able to contact 
them, indicating such an occurance and have them update the mac info.

Then again, I've seen folks post that this has a been a problem.

 >
 > John
 >
 >
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 >
 >


-- 
Until later: Geoffrey		esoteric at 3times25.net

I didn't have to buy my radio from a specific company to listen
to FM, why doesn't that apply to the Internet (anymore...)?


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