[ale] comcast static IP?

[Jim Popovitch]

On Sun, 2005-01-23 at 13:17 -0500, Sean Kilpatrick wrote:

> But to my point:  I live inside the Loop here in Atlanta and
> BS provides the last mile of copper to my house.  I used MIndspring/
> Earthlink for years until their tech support went down the tubes
> to the Philippines. At that point I had a choice:  BS or Speed
> Factory, Speakeasy, etal.  BS had a lower price for DSL but only
> with pppoe and dynamic address.  

I don't know how long ago you tried BellSouth, but as I reported earlier
this month my experience (after reading the instructions) was that pppoe
is not necessarily required on the client machine.  The device shipped
to me took care of the pppoe connection and all I had to do was plug an
ethernet cable into the device.  As i understand it, pppoe is going to
be standard with any non-static DSL service.  In my case BellSouth
provided a DSL "modem" that masked the pppoe mess from me.  In this
regard, I see BellSouth's offering being as simple as hooking up a cable
modem.

> BS's charge for a fixed address
> was higher than some of the other "middlemen." That's why I ended
> up with Speakeasy: No pppoe, fixed address, excellent tech support
> (that is willing to talk Linux/unix), multiple mail boxes without
> additional charge, no problem with multiple computers accessing
> the DSL connection.

That seems to be the general consensus of most Speakeasy/SpeedFactory
customers so far.  I don't have the need for a static IP at home, and I
don't rely on my transit provider to provide email services.  As for
Tech Support, I guess that some people want/need someone on the phone to
help them configure their side of the connection.  This is where I
differ.  I'm comfortable with the copper/75-ohm where it hits my
doorstep, I only need to talk to someone when their side fails.

> My main complaint with BS is that way too many of their pole
> climbers are incompetent and the odds are that the first one sent
> out to look at your "issue" either won't have a clue and will fake
> a response, or he/she will screw up the problem, making it worse
> for the next tech sent out. More than once I have had to wait for
> the third or fourth pole climber to show up (meaning multiple calls
> to customer (mostly) non-service) before the problem was properly
> diagnosed and repaired.  More to the point, I cannot remember the
> last time I had a problem with the last mile of copper and BS managed
> to properly diagnose and repair the problem on the _first_ try.
> As best I can remember that hasn't happened once in the six years
> I have lived in the Atlanta area.

If there is a last mile problem, can Speakeasy send someone up the pole
and/or to your house or is the tech a BellSouth employee/contractor?

-Jim P.