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Verizon's DSL Gets Naked
Ant writes "According to Broadband Reports' news story, Verizon today announced they are now offering 'naked DSL' service (DSL without mandatory local service) in the Northeast. CBS/Marketwatch indicates Northeast customers (ex-NYNEX and Bell Atlantic) can cut or switch their local service with no penalty, starting today. The company insists the move will be national in time, but gave no timeline for when naked DSL would be available elsewhere. Verizon had promised this in May of last year, but then seemingly backtracked."
I was hoping now I could believe to surf naked without me feeling ashamed. :(
I still have to live with the suffering, it seems.
Clicked pie.
I've been wanting this for years. So have many other people. Hopefully this will take off and show other phone companies where their customers want them to go.
I haven't had a landline in years. I live with just my cellphone and cable modem. If Verizon had offered naked DSL when I moved a few years back they'd have gotten my service instead of a cable company.
Which is better? Comcast cable or Verizon DSL? I have Comcast now. Should I consider switching? Opinions? Technical facts?
If it makes it to where I am, I would gladly switch to dsl instead my cable. I don't need all the bandwidth that cable provides, but DSL costs just as much right now because I have to have a phone line with it. (I use a cell phone)
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
Is Verizon actually calling it "Naked DSL"?
If they are...can't wait to see the commercials for it.
Put that back on, I don't want to see that!!!
http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/44065
In Canada, they can't offer naked DSL since the lines would oxidize and fail. Folks, I am not making this stuff up.
Verizon's Fios puts their DSL to shame where available - naked or not. $50 a month for 15Mbps down and 2 up. Hot hot hot.
Well shouldnt this really be the way it should always have been. ,dosn't work like this where im from , they just hit you with a contract for 2 years).
The fact they they try to impose a mandatory term of services on people is has always been something i have had a great deal of problems with (im not from the USA
Very few other service industry impose such penalites upon us , infact its quite odd to me that this behaviour has been allowed , are there not laws top prevent companys from abusing monopolys in this way .
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Now I can drop my home service that was needed just to get the DSL !
If all you use is cellphones then the home line is just redundant and wastes 20-30 bucks a month for something you don't use
Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion, you must set yourself on fire.
Too little, too late for me. I asked them to do this for me at the begining of the year. I had used their DSL for a year, and I got about 3.0 MB down (400kbs up) for about 80 bucks a month. It would have been 30, except for the fact that the phone service costed the difference. I never used the phone, and I wanted cheaper DSL. When they kept saying it wouldn't happen, I dropped verizon and picked up my local cable company for broadband. I get 4 mb down and .5 mb up for 50 bucks a month, without Verizon's shit.
Open Source Sushi
Seriously, if Verizon, or any other phone company would just start offering service EVERYWHERE, instead of JUST in localized areas, so that we had truly competitive phone lines, then I would be happy.
I hate that I can't get DSL without phone service--I too am a vonage user, so that's why I hate it. Unfortunately, my cable company sucks, and I have a period every other day or so when my line goes down mysteriously, and I have to reset my vonage box or my cable modem (or both).
"We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
that's where Naked DSL would go over really well.
But I hear they use FireWire there instead.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
It's funny. You think government would have lead the push for this, but instead it's the market-force pushing for it.
In the end, it's a smart move. It's always best to give the customer what it wants. They must have realized that DSL has more of a future than land lines. I'm betting we see competitors eventually follow. Land lines seem to be a dying breed.
I've had massive problems with my Verizon DSL. Some sort of noise on the line that happens every single night, but it's fine in the day. It's obviously some sort of problem up the line, perhaps crosstalk, but they've shown no interest in helping me track it down. I was going to cancel it tonight.
I was about to bail on Verizon DSL and try cable, but cable's more expensive. So I'm going to see if I can get it on one of the other dry pairs that go into my house and see if that helps.
My understanding is that 'funny' does not raise your karma. While you may get a funny or two (the article is about DSL and that is one way to get to see those), you probably will get an equal or greater bunch of off-topics, flamebaits, etc. Not really worth it. Unless you were to post an appropriate link in support of your point...
Bah, those of us with Verizon DSL in Florida just got our rates raised unless we sign a year long contract. I think I'm paying something like $40/month just for DSL (more when you factor in the phone line that I don't use, with taxes it comes out to $63.75/month). Where I live Verizon is the only choice for DSL, and cable modem service is even more expensive if you don't already have cable television (at least it was before the new rate raise, I'll have to reconsider cable modem service when I move in June). I even thought about just going with dialup. But I'd still have to pay the $20/month for a phone line I don't use so it wouldn't be worth it.
So, somebody remind me, do we hate Verizon now, for their CEO hating municipal wifi? Or do we love them for being the first behemoth telco to offer naked DSL in a big way? What's the Slashdot party line now?
A major corporation announces a service, but doesn't actually offer it until a year later? How is that news? Microsoft does it all the time! I recall that other phone companies (the smaller local ones) have been doing this in some way or another for about 18 months on average now. Of course, I could be mistaken....
Note the importance of this. There must be a lot of unused copper pairs in Verizons service area for them to even consider doing this. It suggests that a good fraction of the people living in the northeast are dispensing with landlines. In other words, Verizon's core business, which has been the biggest industry in the U.S. for over a century, is dying.
I just had my Bell Canada landline cancelled today (I live in mid-town Toronto).
The CRTC (government regulator) ordered Bell to do what it promised last year by the end of March 2005, and they did. Bell is "soft-launching" it for now (i.e., you have to call and ask, they aren't advertising it on their website, for the obvious reason that they are rolling out their own VoIP in Ontario/Quebec this year)
But now I have Sympatico Hi-Speed (2mb/s) and Vonage VoIP (500min/month for $20CDN), with no landline (which beats $35/month for a landline with just Call Display)
With the RBOCs getting on board with VOIP you will see this happen with all the US telcos. There is talk about pair bonding in the works for DSL which will provide 26 meg in the next year or so. My ISP has 6 meg now. With those speed increases, VOIP and IPTV (we shall see) become viable and the need for regular DSL (with the clothes on) will no longer be needed. I know that in the eyes of the consumer that time has passed. However it is a big move when the phone companies see it as well.
I have Verizon DSL and I have had few problems until just recently. Just recently they changed their IP scheme (used to be 4.x.x.x now it's 71.x.x.x) in my area as well as the behavior of their DHCP servers (MAC-based authorization). It's been a huge pain in my ass that I wasn't at all notified about. They've also been getting progressively slower over time and just recently (Saturday) they had an unexplained 5-hour outage in the 425 area code (the *entire* area code). However, I am at the outer limits of DSL's coverage range and any number of factors could be affecting my own personal experiences.
Comcast is running a special right now, first 5 months for $29.99 each month (This makes it the same price as Verizon) if you're a current Comcast subscriber. It's $10/month extra for "naked cable internet" as it were. That's the nice thing about Comcast: they'll give you what you want, for a price, while Verizon is just not about making people happy.
I say that they're not about making people happy because I spent 35 minutes on hold while waiting to talk to somebody about their nullroute problem. They play a "helpful tips" message over and over again, no hold music, and a "your call is important, you're in a queue, yadda yadda" message, looped as well. There's a pause between the voice offering tips and when it plays the first tip, lulling you into some kind of false sense of security, as if it's picking a random tip to share. Nope, it's the same stupid tips, over and over. ("unplugging and restarting your DSL modem can fix most DSL problems!") I really wish they'd just give me some hold music and an option to press 1 for some quick tips if I want them. But you see, Verizon isn't about choices, which is why they like locking people into the "you need basic phone service to get DSL" thing. They don't like people having options, they like to dictate what people can and can't do. I say fuck 'em, if they're gonna be like that.
Tangentially, I wonder how much latent anger towards women is generated by these automated female voices that do nothing other than frustrate and irritate us? I would prefer an obviously-synthesized robotic voice over a trying-to-sound-human voice. I hate those machines
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
This is interesting, but I wonder how they will handle new customers? I recently built a house in an area serviced by Verizon, and previously had SBC as my local telco. When I ordered Verizon phone service, I attempted to add DSL, but was told that you can't add such services until you've been a Verizon customer for at least a year...
If I remember correctly, Qwest had this out west (CO), anyone know what happened to it?
Jesus saves souls and redeems them for valuable cash prizes
...and the operator didn't seem to know anything about it being available now and insisted that it would be out sometime in the next year. I live in Maryland and I'm pretty sure that when I was a kid (not too far from here) we had Bell Atlantic. Is this just a case of cluelessness on the part of Verizon employees, or so you think they are trying to force people to keep paying for local service?
Technoli
I'd be willing to bet money the timing of both this release and the previous was carefully planned to mollify some states public service utilities or some bill being reviewed in Congress.
Perhaps http://www.thestandard.com/internetnews/000850.php /
oops - make that emperor.
I also had problems with Verizon. I went from being able to get DSL to not being able to get it, and when I asked about naked DSL the support person was dumbfounded. This was also met with the usual "We have no plans to upgrade the DSLAM equipment in the CO you are connected to."
:(
My answer was "cancel my phone service please." Since then I have been using T-Mobile hot spots for my access and where ever I can find a open access point. With T-Mobile I get synchronous T-1, and since I am a T-Mobile subscriber I get the T-Mobile hot spot use for $19.95 a month. Yeah it's kind of a pain in the ass, but Comcast costs WAY too much and Verizon can stick it till they offer naked DSL in my area.
I sure miss not being able to run my own servers
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
Speakeasy had this first, branding it Onelink. I think they rolled it out in September. Note too, if you only have one copper pair (some places have this), it complicates things a little bit - you'll have to come in with a VoIP line already established, forward your old phone number to the VoIP, and when the DSL is ready to hook up, instruct the tech to make the switch at the punch board. At your option, you either shuck the old number, keep it, or arrange for a transfer, which *might* involve a new VoIP account (and all the logistics thereunto related).
This sig no verb.
I've had both Adelphia cable and Verizon DSL for the last few years. DSL has been *way* more reliable. It's faster too, because Adelphia's network is so bogged. But for the last year I've had cable because I didn't want to pay an extra $20/month for a land line I didn't need (I use my cell phone, also Verizon, for all my calls.) It looks like now I can switch back. I wonder when naked DSL is coming to the mid-Atlantic.
But in some cases it makes sense for government to regulate the free market, in particular about (near) monopolies and anticompetitive behaviour. Forcing customers to buy fixed-line telephony from the same company if they want DSL is clearly anticompetitive behaviour.
In Denmark where I live more people have high-speed Internet access than in the United States. This is mostly due to our government imposing restrictions on anticompetitive behaviour in the telecom sector. For example we have no requirement to buy fixed-line telephony if we want high speed Internet access. And market-dominant telecoms are required to lease access wires (last mile of cobber to the consumer) to competitors at a reasonable rate (the ones owning the wires are still getting a good price so they can earn money). In some cases you can even buy telephony from one company and buy Internet access from another company on the same physical wire, but I do not think this is government-mandated.
Er... so this means that if I disconnect my local phone service, then the line to my house will oxidize and I would be unable to re-connect it next year?
Yeah... total BS. You need the *voltage* but not *dial tone*. The only thing standing in the way of naked DSL in Canada is that Bell wants to force you to get a landline.
Guys, I live in Maryland. Is that included in the naked DSL?
More generally, how can we lookup exactly what's covered? (Their website asks for a phone number, but I don't have a landline by virtue of being in the market for naked dsl!)
I checked the add which claimed it is $49.95. However, I have Qwest naked DSL which theoretically costs about $35. But after ever increasing fees, taxes, and service charges it now costs about $54 per month. I bet that Verizon Fios is similar and probably adds up to near or even more than $70 per month. (I'd love to be corrected if I'm wrong. I know broadband cable doesn't tack on such huge fees.)
Does this mean I can finally get rid of my dialtone service altogether??? Or does it just mean I don't have to have Verizon for dialtone, but I still need to have a local carrier?
:-)
Also, I have DSL through a CLEC (GWI.net), does anyone know if they count too?
I've been wanting to drop dialtone for a long long time and go with cellular instead for phone service. As it is, I can't justify paying $30/mo or so for Verizon landline plus the same again for cell.
Oh please please please please!!
Earthlink offers dsl, cable, and dial up service. I ordered cable service from them here in the Indianapolis area, and bright house networks came to do the installation, which is also where i get my service from. However, I do not have cable tv service of any type. I'm guessing that their dsl service is of the same way, where they just send a local telecom company to provide the service.
I'm in Cambridge MA. I just phoned them four times. Responses:
1. anger: you can't have DSL without local phone!
2. oh, you want to buy our VoiceWing product (VOIP)
3. call transferred to dead-end
4. admits that she hasn't heard of it yet, and none of her co-workers have either, but that I'm not the first to call about it. She wanted to know where I heard about it, so I read her an AP news clipping.
So I guess we'll have to wait a while until they get their act together.
I just recently switched from more than five years with DSL to cable because of the cost. For $10 more than my DSL provider (Covad), I'm now getting more than 3x the download speed and 3x the upload speed. I can go even faster if I want to throw another $10 at it. I know that Verizon is cheaper, but the value still isn't there.
... for those who get (or will be getting) broadband cable availability.
... will the next step be to lead the way or to step on the customers?
This is a great hurdle for Verizon to overcome. As more and more people are switching to cellular for voice, not locking people into a base package (which costs at least $23 the last time I checked) is going to be a plus, particularly in areas where cable broadband is not available.
But until Verizon (and DSL providers in general) get their heads out of the "1.5 Mb is the fastest that we give" particularly for those of us who are less than 5,000 feet from the CO (like myself), DSL just doesn't provide the value.
Until they get past that marketing arrogance, they are limiting their customer base to those who want to get away from modems. That's certainly not a small amount of people, but once their customers taste the speed difference, those who want more are going to demand more. Until DSL providers break away from outragous >1.5 Mb costs, all they're doing is providing a stepping stone to potential cable broadband customers
But for those who can't (or won't) get broadband cable, this is at least a way to get rid of the 56K modem. It's good to see Verizon do this. It's a good first step. The question is
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
Naked dsl just makes all pictures of people into pron. Like those xray gogs in the back of comic books.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
qwest has been selling naked dsl to all comers for over a year.
where they can, of course. you have to meet the technical specs, generally being low bridge tap, no voice coil loads on the pair, and within some 16-18 kilofeet of the dslam.
this unfortunately is the major limiting factor for DSL wannabuys; most lines were rebuilt or extended in the 60s and 70s, and coils were religion in those times every 6 kfeet apart.
but you gotta try and agitate if you can't qualify to get your section rehabbed or another dslam put in remotely to get the service.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
I already switch from DSL to Road Runner (Cable Modem). I tried to get the MEGA-Telco to give me just DSL (I prefer my neighbor to not recieve my data). I guess we both lose out now. At least I am up to 5Mb/sec downloads. :-)
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
...it ONLY applies if you use Verizon as an ISP. No thanks. Their TOS don't allow so much as a web server, no static IP unless you pay 3 times as much for "business service" (and you STILL can't run a server). Plus their customer service sucks.
Now, if they let me use my current third party ISP and allow me to cut the local phone service, then I have something I can actually use. But this? Yawn.
Several months ago I got Verizon DSL during a hardware promo period, and had it installed for about 4 hours. I very quickly discovered that I couldn't use their outgoing mail servers unless my "From:" contained username@verizon.net (or some other verizon domain variant). Nope, it flat-out rejected it. Well, wtf??? As if nobody ever wants to send email "From" their other email addresses for work, personal domains, etc? So I uninstalled the equipment and returned it for a refund. Back to cable for me.
I see no point in using Verizon unless they lift these draconian restrictions on SMTP servers.
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
I live in the Boston area. I pay $53.+ per month (total) for Comcast Internet service. And that's very minimum I can pay for Comcast internet service. Sure, I get the basic Cable TV included... but I don't want cable TV ... hell, local broadcast TV is great quality, and about 14 channels. Sadly, Comcast makes the "Basic Cable/Internet" package the least expensive way for me to get Internet service. $53+/month.
So I'm very very happy that a bundless Verizon package is available in my neighborhood. I plan to sign up next week, and get some better service (good-bye friggin' DNS issues!) and at a lower cost.
And to Comcast: screw you.
Where's the news? Is Verizon considered the leader? They're a bit too greedy 'cuz they're not exactly "with it."
around where I live, and the majority of the U.S. I suspect, the telco's have to offer E911 services.. meaning that if you don't have local service (at all), but plug in a phone and dial 911 ... you get an emergency operator.
The 48v is already on the line in order to offer the E911 service.. you just don't have a phone number provisioned... This whole oxidization thing is pure B.S.
http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/trends/n_9437 /index.html
"The Porn Myth
In the end, porn doesn't whet men's appetites--it turns them off the real thing."
...naked home-cleaning services. I imagine there's only a small proportion of Verizon technicians I'd be happy to see in the buff.
I’m old enough to remember 16K of memory being described as “whopping”
So what's the catch?
[o]_O
So is this still true (I know it used to be in NYC) ? I hate to force my little BSD box to munge through that God-awful PPPOE protocol instead of a good-ol fashioned simple Ethernet/TCP-IP connection. But I sure wish TW/RR would lower their prices to be in line with Verizon DSL...
Now that step 1 is underway, the splitting of landline and DSL services, I propose we initiate step 2: elimination of all phone books.
At minimum, I would prefer it if a new phone book weren't deposited at my front door every 4-6 months.
As wasteful or more than landlines if you ask me.
Is this where the engineer arrives at your home in the nude?
My other sig is crap too
Verizon is composed of rejcts and misfits who couldn't cut it at Adelphia
This is related to the FCC regulation that requires Verizon and other telco's to port numbers.
Otherwise they wouldn't bother, as it is a lose/lose situation for them.
For this to make any difference. My old house was only 3000 feet from a remote DSLAM. I'm now over 21000 feet from the closest DSLAM. Verizon will give me service, and gladly take my money for it, but they advised me that my speeds would be pretty sad for DSL.
I just use my wrt54g, and it works like a charm.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Do you know if it's possible to get FIOS without a phone line? I have FIOS, but I have not yet tried to ditch my Verizon phone service.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
No, it comes to the house as fiber and there is a box on the back of my house that replaces the old demarc for the copper phone line.
From there, the signal is converted to copper. In other words, you won't have to rewire your house.
There is no copper wire connection to my house anymore. It was cut, and there was a bunch of wire in my garden (they only cut it about 1' away from the house). So I snipped the wire where it came out of the ground and covered it with mulch. Problem solved.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
I just spoke with Verizon support - They are not offering this service yet.
Why the animosity toward this guy. It's his money, not yours. Maybe he doesn't want dialtone. Maybe he wants to send a frickin' message to the telco for making him siphon funds from his checking account to their vault for something he doesn't use or want. $12 for dialtone? Yeah, good thinking there.
I just talked to someone at Verizon and they said that these articles were a "misprint." They told me that they will be offering naked dsl in 3-6 months(not exactly the same as 'starting today'), but it sounds like you'll probably have to subscribe to their VoIP services, which pretty much defeats the purpose since this is more expensive than just having the most basic phone services. Argh, frustration.