[ale] recommended personal DSL provider for Alpharetta ?

Mon Sep 25 09:28:33 EDT 2006

On Mon, 2006-09-25 at 09:00 -0400, Jeff Lightner wrote:
> Correction:  
> Alltel not AllTell and Alltel no longer provides wireline services.  The
> wireline company was pun off into a new company named Windstream.

I thought they had been bought or changed name. I don't track them as
they are not in my area. I do have friends and clients in their area so
I am somewhat - if third party - familiar with them.
> 
> Despite your disapproval both stocks are doing well.  :p

Stock value is not a good indicator of service quality.
> 
> I've been using cable for the past few years and disagree with the "days
> not hours" line.  In most cases it seems that interruptions are cleared
> quickly and the companies I've used (TimeWarner in NC and Comcast here)
> seem to be aware of the problem before I call them.

For the large-scale service outages, nearly every provider does OK. When
a router goes up in smoke or a major trunk gets back-hoed, they all jump
and make things happen.

It's when an individual has a connection issue that the 
days, not hours" rears it's ugly head.

A personal anecdote: My next door neighbor sold their house and moved
out. They arranged to have the cable service disconnected the day after
they were out. I knew this because I spoke with the tech as he pulled up
and blocked my driveway. So he proceeds to disconnect MY cable (we were
in the middle of Babylon 5 reruns - GRRR!). I run out to see if he fell
off the ladder and took out my line and saw the cable truck driving off
and saw _MY_ line dangling from the box.

So I called the cable company and informed them of this event. 

They put me on the schedule for repair 4 days later!! I could still see
the truck stopped at the end of the street doing paperwork. All they had
to do was call him and correct the problem.

So I got a ladder and climbed the pole and fixed it myself (like it's
hard!) and put a label on my line.

4 days later, the same cable tech shows up to reconnect my cable.

I could go on and on and on with stories of a similar nature from
friends and family and clients.

One thing to keep in mind: when you get a DSL line, you also get a
backup dial-up access. When the cable modem goes out, tough.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of
> James P. Kinney III
> Sent: Sunday, September 24, 2006 12:42 PM
> To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
> Subject: Re: [ale] recommended personal DSL provider for Alpharetta ?
> 
> Hi Courtney,
> 
> DSL: your bandwidth is YOUR bandwidth. System doesn't slow down when the
> kids get home from school because they are on the cable modem shared
> bandwidth with you. DSL runs over phone line and is ultimately managed
> by the telco (Bellsouth for most, AllTell for the truly unfortunate).
> DSL is quite reliable and robust as long as the dialtone techs don't
> make a mess. In most cases, DSL will be slower on the download than the
> cable modem will. DSL will generally be a bit faster on the upload.
> 
> Cable: Generally faster download. Customer service even worse than phone
> company (service outage will be repaired in MOST cases in days, not
> hours). Cable is geared for non-tech, home consumer mentality. If all
> you want is low-cost high speed download and service glitches won't
> clobber you, cable is a great choice.
> 
> If you plan on working from home and you absolutely MUST have a reliable
> access method, DSL is a better choice.
> 
> The "naked" DSL from places like Speakeasy cost more that the
> traditional shared line DSL. The signalling is different and the
> head-end connection is different. It is closer to T1 than ISDN.
> 
> If you MUST HAVE solid connection for work (or you will be running
> servers), you need a connection package that has SLA's. 
> 
> Cable modem has no SLA ability (NOTE: I have NOT seen the new business
> cable packages term yet - it may be an option). SLA packages will cost
> more. But it means if an outage occurs, you are not appended tot he end
> of the list. You get inserted near the top.
> 
> The general rule is still "you get what you pay for".
> 
> I use Speakeasy. I have used BellSouth and Mindspring->Earthlink DSL
> (and ISN and T1 and dialup...). The customer service from Speakeasy is
> fantastic. It is the best customer service I have ever seen in nearly
> every IT/telcom arena. And it does cost me more than what I could get
> elsewhere. But I run servers and I want the upload speed. So I pay for
> 768k upload and multiple static IPs on two separate lines.
> Load-balancing gives me T1 upload for under the price of a 1/4 T1.
> 
> Speakeasy speaks Linux quite happily. The wiring infrastructure is
> handled by Covad. I can also recommend Covad with no reservations
> either. The few issues I or my Speakeasy clients have had, Covad has
> responded in record time (compared to the other connection options) and
> the issue was resolved and the solution communicated back to me (not
> just a "service restored" notice. I like knowing what went on so I can
> refer back to that sympton if I see it again.).
> 
> On Sun, 2006-09-24 at 09:43 -0400, Courtney Thomas wrote:
> > I'm now ready to move, up hopefully,   :-)   to DSL.
> > 
> > What are my choices and the dis/advantages of each, please ?
> > 
> > Among the tolerable, who is the least expensive  ?
> > 
> > As always, thanks,
> > 
> > Courtney
> > _______________________________________________
> > Ale mailing list
> > Ale at ale.org
> > http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
-- 
James P. Kinney III          
CEO & Director of Engineering 
Local Net Solutions,LLC        
770-493-8244                    
http://www.localnetsolutions.com

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7
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