Hmmm... does that ISP happen to have the fitting initials BS? I was *supposed* to have DSL as of yesterday but I didn't. When I called over a month ago to BS to order my home phone service they said I could get DSL, and I would have my install package (I would install my line filter and modem myself) on Nov 7. Well, I was all excited when I got home last night, only to find I had received nothing from BS (aside from the BS they gave me on the phone). So, I call and ask "WHAZZZUP?!?!?" only to find the sales rep was an idiot and no DSL in my area until June 2001. Although, I do see them laying cables along my road, so it may be sooner. So, as of monday I will be getting a cable modem. Or, I can just stay at work 24/7 and enjoy my OC3.

Cheers,
KM

My boss has both a regular ADSL line and a fixed service "T1ish" SDSL line. At various times BS has punched a real T1 on _HALF_ of his two wires, cut his neighborhood wires completely, punched another DSL customer on _HALF_ his wires and disconnected his home telco for 8 hours when he called about poor connect speeds on his ADSL.

He's REAL happy with BS. Meanwhile, my BS ADSL has been trouble free for months. I did have to teach the guy how to install the software they "require" to be installed. Of course it bombed because I had a NEWER version of Netscape already loaded. Very sad.

--
$you = new YOU;
honk() if $you->love(perl)

Ack! I'm lame. I didn't even say I was using a modem. I must get coffee.

I signed up for DSL and an ISP from the DSL provider web site. It finally took three months before I could get an appointment to have DSL installed.

The techinician showed up and installed the splitter. The next step was to install the modem and program the IP addresses on my computer. He then asked me what IP addresses to use. Since I signed up for DSL and the ISP on the same web site I assumed they would provide this information.

It took a while to to find the name of the ISP and call them to get the IP addresses. By this time the appointment was over and the technician had to leave. I ended up programming the modem and my computer and got it working the next day.

The DSL line worked fine for several months then it stopped working for days. It took hours on hold before I could even leave a voicemail message at customer service. Finally the DSL started working again and a week after that I got a phone call to make an appointemtment to get it repaired. It was already working when they called.

A few days later my phone stopped working. The phone company told me it would take a week to get it fixed. I couldn't wait a week so I fixed the wiring myself.

Rule #1: DO NOT get DSL with anything non-standard. Do not call up and change anything about your DSL order prior to it being installed, and AVOID making any changes to your phone line after your DSL is installed. Most phone company employees and systems were originally meant to accomodate simple voice and data circuits. DSL is "weird" and implemented in various software in strange ways. As a result, it's very easy for a human operator to goof up your DSL, and sometimes even normal changes can result in other strangeness in your order that could cause your DSL to be disconnected or stop functioning.

Do those comments also apply to ISDN? I know that everytime I called them for whatever reason concerning the line, it was a complete case of FUBAR... every time.

Roy Alan

Philosophy can be made out of anything. Or less -- Jerry A. Fodor

Almost as bad as my 56K dialup that connects around 32k, after dialing twice!

I cancelled my isdn and got an Omnisky cdpd modem for my palmVx. What was I thinking?

My dad's (and formerly my own) phone line only gets 26.4k, with a 56k modem. US West only guaranteed speeds up to 2400 baud. I wonder if that's changed now that they're Qwest?

I've never had really serious problems with it -- though, truth be told, another person in my same house signed up and got the dynamic DSL and had nothing but problems. Time to set up a household firewall, and just have all the house machines go thru my DSL, I guess.

PBI as an ISP, now, that's another fsckin story entirely. But no complaints at all about the DSL service.

There ya go, vroom, your next poll should try to discover how many folks have their entire house ethernetted ... ;)

    - Muse

I'm curious, what about a static IP is so attractive that some people are willing to pay extra for it? Is it so that you can run services like ftp, httpd or gaming servers? Because it's somewhat easier to set up, particularly on a non-MiSFiT OS?

As to the question of personal LANs, networking the entire house together to use the cable modem was my first Linux project.

And no, I don't own 27 pairs of sweatpants.

ssh'ing into your home network, mainly. that's why i pay extra for a static IP. also, i can run my own outgoing mail server, since i'm not likely to automatically get onto any blackhole-type lists (e.g. RBL, DUL). i've seen dynamic DSL ranges make it onto the DUL (Dialup Users List).

Yah, running services is part of why I like having a static IP. But the most important thing to me is, I never have to negotiate with some server for an IP address, and never have to worry about there not being an available address at any given time, the way I saw it happen on occasion with my housemate's dynamic IP. That's pretty important to me.

That my buds who run their own household ISP can tweak their DNS settings so that I can be east.elfhill.com, and that I can host multiplayer D2 games, is icing on the cake... ;)

    - Muse

Just to bring some Perl into this discussion, and because I'm inherently lazy and don't want to burn time hunting up references and such if somebody else has already done that work, and because my own understanding of how firewalls work is sketchy at best:

Has anybody written any firewall-implementing code in Perl? Open question, this, incorporating a number of subsidiary questions, like "Can it be done? Is there a reason (not) to do it?"

    - Muse

9.24 Mbps/sec

--
Casey
   I am a superhero.

So now I use sneaker net. ;)

Oh yeah, a buddy up here said I could use his modem, but after getting use to a cable modem, what's the point?!

UPDATE:
Finally got a DSL connection at the end of January 2001.

I would sign up for the same service again without reservations...

Prost,
Moe