On the Reliability of DSL Providers...

vt@home asks: "It so happened that I have to find a provider again. @Home is not available at my current location, US West says my location is not good enough for DSL, yet, many DSL providers (Verio and Bazillion, to name a few) claim that they can provide me with at least 144K connection. It's alarming that most of the people who have any opinion about DSL, have a negative one (see DSL Reports for one), and the positive opinions look suspiciously like stroturfers. Additional points of concern are the 1 year commitments, and the unusually long time wait time before the service is activated (4-6 weeks on paper could turn into months). So the question is, what is a reliable source that rates the DSL providers? Do you guys have anything to say about your DSL provider, no matter good or bad? If you ever switched from the cable modem to DSL (or back), how was it? Responses about Phoenix Metro will be much appreciated."

As someone personally suffering in DSL Limbo, I can understand vt@home's frustration. I ordered my DSL way back at the end of July and was told "6 weeks" by the company that's offering DSL in my area. Of course, it's now nearing the end of September and although I was promised that Bell-Atlantic (now Verizon) would make the necessary connections last Friday. It's Tuesday and nary a Verizon truck in site with my line. I can't blame the company I initially signed up with. They made the offer in good faith, but we both have been screwed by the local telco. Strike withstanding, I figure I should have seen someone by now, yet I haven't. This story is not unusual in the pursuit of DSL.

So if you have DSL, please share your experiences good or bad and tell us what you think of your provider. If anything it might help the next person in search of broadband prepare for the long waits and the excuses if their service isn't delivered as promised.

Comments

I WORK for the people getting you DSL...

[trims]

OK, I live in the SF Bay area, and I work for one of the national DSL providers (NOT the ISP, but the people who actually deliver the line for you, and NOT one of the ILECs). I can't name them specifically, but let's just say they aren't Rhythms.

DSL delivery generally has a couple of major problems (I'm the primary troubleshooter on long-overdue orders, so I see alot of this). If one of these happens, it can take weeks to fix, much of which is due to the back-and-forth nature of fixing problems that require interaction between 3 or 4 HUGE companies. Think: we talk to ISP, determine there is a problem, talk to ILEC, twiddle a bit, talk to ILEC, talk to ILEC, ILEC does something, we look at it, talk to ILEC, talk to end-user, talk to ILEC, etc....

In general, we're closing about 50-60% of our orders within 1 month. The goal is 75% by calendar year end, and 90% for next year. However, if an order doesn't get closed within 1 month, it averages 8-12 weeks to get closed.

Unless you work at an I/CLEC, you have no idea how screwed up the physical plant for the phone system is. Line conditioners, repeaters, bad wiring installs, mismatched/mislabeled wiring - it's a wonder people get anything installed. Alot of this can be blamed on the "get it done, and don't worry about it" attitude of the ILEC. However, a large amount is also due to the fact that the phone system was (and is) designed to deliver VOICE PHONE service, and things that are done to improve voice are often harmful for data carriers.

Another problem is that we're one of the few (if not ONLY) DSL people who actually have an automated ordering system. That is, when you give your info to an ISP, they can automatically enter it into our system, which automatically makes the ILEC loop order, starts the network provisioning, puts in the ATM parameters, etc. Virtually everyone else does this by hand. Our system works about 90% of the time, and getting better. And we're still averaging 4 weeks. Think about the other guys....

A couple of things that will speed your DSL order, no matter who you place it with:

• Make sure you have the correct address/zip code - you have no idea how many problems we have with people not giving us the correct address. By address, I mean the one that the phone company bills you at - this occassionally isn't your postal address. If you're not sure, CALL THE PHONE COMPANY AHEAD OF TIME. As them what they think your phone delivery address is, and not your billing address. Generally, this is only a problem in multi-unit dwellings, or things like rowhouses.
• Figure out where you want the DSL line to go. By this I mean identify the plug where you want the DSL line to come out of. If you can get your hands on some basic line-testing stuff (borrow one from your work if you can), test that this line is indeed wired into your external exchange. I know this sounds complex, but it really isn't. You just need to verify that the jack is really hooked up.
• Respone quickly to any email/phone correspondence from the DSL provider. You can save yourself alot of pain by quickly replying to any messages you get. That helps the DSL people solve problems faster, and get your line in quicker.

DSL is certainly not a smooth install for everyone yet. With the coming of line-sharing by all DSL providers, install times should go down considerably, since they can piggyback on your existing phone line, and don't have to run a new one. Honestly, though, I doubt you'll ever see times drop below an average of 2 weeks. The physical phone plant is just too messy.

Also, here are some 'rule-of-thumb' distances for various services (note that the distance from the CO is measured in feet of actual wire - it can be hard to figure that out, since wire often runs in a decidedly indirect path between you and your CO):

• ADSL: 15,000 feet for minimum 384/128. You can usually get about 1Mbps at around 11,000.
• SDSL: 15,000 feet for 192, 12,000 for 384, 9,000 for 768, 8,000 for 1.1, and 7,000 for 1.5.
• IDSL: 144 at up to about 22,000, though many won't sell you it at distances over 18,000.
• RADSL: up to 8Mbps at about 6,000. This is rare as of yet.

Hope this helps.

-Erik

DSLreports.com *is* reliable.

[hatless]

DSLreports.com is reliable in my experience. Extremely so.

Plenty of people will have perfectly smooth service from a "bad" provider and there will be people with bad service from a "good" one, but trust the overall vibe you get on a given provider on DSLreports. If it seems negative and gloomy, that's because it is. Welcome to DSL.

I'm not sure what your problem is. OK, USWest won't serve you, but DSLreports found providers that will. So find a decently-rated one and go with them. Or don't. Can't get the speed you want? You're probably too far away from the nearest central office equipped for DSL. Suck it up.

The thing with DSL is that fast DSL business service costs roughly 1/4 the price of a T1, and you'll likely find you have 4 times the number and duration of outages. You get what you pay for. If reliability isn't critical and you can deal with the occasional 4-10 hours of downtime every other month, you'll be okay.

As for residential DSL, you may be wondering why fast residential DSL costs 1/4 what the slowest business DSL costs. The answer, as I've learned from experience, is again reliability. Once again, do the math. Assume 4 times the number and severity of outages that you'd get with comparable business DSL. I assume this is because a customer paying 6 times as much gets 6 times the engineering resources devoted to it.

My Verizon (née BellAtlantic) residential service is down an average of 2 days a month. In the last month, I've had a 4-day outage and a 2-day outage as well as countless disconnects (actually, I could look at my logs and count them, but I don't feel like it).

Sounds bad, right? But here's the kicker. Though I'm switching my (small but growing) company from DSL to a T1, I have no desire to switch to a cable modem at home, which brings a whole different set of issues. I'm sticking with DSL until something genuinely better comes along. Now I just need to switch out of Verizon.