It wasn't enough to divide PacBell the phone company from PacBell the DSL company. They still operate as one and will always operate as one.
Maybe where you are, but not in SNET-land.
We had a big problem with our DSL (three week outage) caused by SNET switching the cable loop that our dial-tone was on. They remembered to connect DSL on the new cable, but forgot to unplug the DSL on the old cable. Result: the effective cable length was instantly doubled and the DSL signal went to hell. If we had figured this out a week after we actually did, the DSL tech would not have been able to make the direct call to the CO that he did to get the problem fixed.
We've had ADSL through SNET (part of SBC) here in southern Connecticut since April, maybe a few weeks after they started offering the service. The installation was smooth -- took a couple weeks between contact and install. We were getting well over the minimum downstream rate (800k vs. 384k) initially and were happy.
After a couple months, though, we lost sync for what turned out to be almost an entire month. You see, SNET is only the billing entity. The technical folks are an outfit called ASI which spun off from SNET for regulatory reasons earlier in the year. We played the ping-pong ball between SNET and ASI for a few weeks before finally resolving the issue -- turned out that SNET was switching our circuit to a different cable. As expected, they had no problems switching dial-tone to the new cable. Amazingly, they even remembered to plug the DSL into the new cable as well. They just forgot to unplug the DSL from the old cable. Hence, sudden doubling in our distance from the CO which pushed us over the limit for adequate signal strength. An ASI guy finally figured it out and, though it took 3 days from solution to resolution, we've been back in business ever since. We got a credit for the lost time, but it's been painful actually getting that resolved. You know the story: SNET says they just bill per ASI and can't issue the credit themselves while ASI says it's a billing problem and that SNET needs to resolve it. Still, it's not too bad since the service is working -- although since the cable switch, we're now getting only 400k downstream instead of the original 800. Still, it's above the minimum so I won't complain.
Despite that, we've been otherwise happy with the service. I can only remember one outage (that I noticed) since April and it only lasted overnight one weekend. The contract requires you to use SNET as your ISP and they use PPPoE, but that's dealable. We've been using a Linksys router to connect our home network and it's worked really well.
I've had residential SBC DSL (guaranteed 384k down/128k up) through SNET here in Connecticut since April. When initially installed, within a few weeks of the service first being offered, we were getting around 800k down. Since then, it's dropped down to right around 380k. So, I can't complain, but it does seem like they are running very close to the edge on the bandwidth in my area (New Haven).
Slashdot Mirror
i'd hate to see it's fork ball...
Maybe where you are, but not in SNET-land.
We had a big problem with our DSL (three week outage) caused by SNET switching the cable loop that our dial-tone was on. They remembered to connect DSL on the new cable, but forgot to unplug the DSL on the old cable. Result: the effective cable length was instantly doubled and the DSL signal went to hell. If we had figured this out a week after we actually did, the DSL tech would not have been able to make the direct call to the CO that he did to get the problem fixed.
>ST:TMP = Star Trek: The Motion Picture
you mean "star trek: the motionless picture" of course.
We've had ADSL through SNET (part of SBC) here in southern Connecticut since April, maybe a few weeks after they started offering the service. The installation was smooth -- took a couple weeks between contact and install. We were getting well over the minimum downstream rate (800k vs. 384k) initially and were happy.
After a couple months, though, we lost sync for what turned out to be almost an entire month. You see, SNET is only the billing entity. The technical folks are an outfit called ASI which spun off from SNET for regulatory reasons earlier in the year. We played the ping-pong ball between SNET and ASI for a few weeks before finally resolving the issue -- turned out that SNET was switching our circuit to a different cable. As expected, they had no problems switching dial-tone to the new cable. Amazingly, they even remembered to plug the DSL into the new cable as well. They just forgot to unplug the DSL from the old cable. Hence, sudden doubling in our distance from the CO which pushed us over the limit for adequate signal strength. An ASI guy finally figured it out and, though it took 3 days from solution to resolution, we've been back in business ever since. We got a credit for the lost time, but it's been painful actually getting that resolved. You know the story: SNET says they just bill per ASI and can't issue the credit themselves while ASI says it's a billing problem and that SNET needs to resolve it. Still, it's not too bad since the service is working -- although since the cable switch, we're now getting only 400k downstream instead of the original 800. Still, it's above the minimum so I won't complain.
Despite that, we've been otherwise happy with the service. I can only remember one outage (that I noticed) since April and it only lasted overnight one weekend. The contract requires you to use SNET as your ISP and they use PPPoE, but that's dealable. We've been using a Linksys router to connect our home network and it's worked really well.
I've had residential SBC DSL (guaranteed 384k down/128k up) through SNET here in Connecticut since April. When initially installed, within a few weeks of the service first being offered, we were getting around 800k down. Since then, it's dropped down to right around 380k. So, I can't complain, but it does seem like they are running very close to the edge on the bandwidth in my area (New Haven).