Re: [PLUG] DSL has arrived!

[gabriel rosenkoetter <gr@eclipsed.net>]

On Thu, Aug 21, 2003 at 04:59:49PM -0400, Doug Crompton wrote:
> Some of you may remember me as the one that waged or tried to wage the war
> with Verizon about the lack of DSL availability to many suburban areas in
> southeastern PA. Well today in my mailbox I got a message from Verizon
> that ADSL is now available to my location!

Cool!

They finally got around to it, or your work paid off?

Either way, good news.

> I think that using Verizon as a provider though is out of the question.

Good choice. COVAD's pretty much your only other DSL provider choice
(there are a fair number of ISP choices), but that's fine, because,
to my knowledge, they've been reliable and reasonable in the Philly
area. (They had some problems when they over-stretched their
business infrastructure and got burned a bit in the dot-bomb, but
I've certainly never had any problems.)

> I called SpeakEasy and they have a 1.5/128, 2 static IP package for $69 with
> the first 3 months at $29.95. Modem free with rebate.

That's a pretty decent deal. I've a friend or two who got a 1.5/768
ADSL deal for slightly more money than that, which wouldn't be bad
either, and may be preferable if you plan to serve things. I think
that comes in around $120 a month or less (less, I think). You may
want to see if Speakeasy's still offering that one.

I've got 768 SDSL (for ~$160 a month) with four static IP addresses,
and switching back to ADSL on that 128/768 plan is fairly tempting,
but I'm not sure what I'd lose exactly. (Certainly, I can keep the
two spare IP addresses, which I do use, at the old $5-a-month rate.
I don't know/remember enough about the network architecture to be
sure on whether the synchronous is worth my extra money any more.)

> Anyone have any comments or suggestions about a provider? I don't think I
> can go wrong with SpeakEasy?

You probably can't go wrong with Speakeasy (and, hey, I've been
quite happy with them for a couple of years now), but it'd be worth
your time to get comparative pricing from DCANet. They're
local/regional, quite competent, pay attention to PLUG from time to
time, and you'll get 6 static IP addresses as part of any deal with
them, last I heard. (They're just allocating you a /29.)

(I've said it before: I'm with Speakeasy, and quite happy there,
in part because I didn't know about DCANet and in part because I
like being with a national ISP, since it means that I could maintain
the same relationship and similar service if/when I move elsewhere.)

> I am 21K feet from CO so they must be installing at the remote site which
> is about 1K feet away. I am in Richboro, Bucks County - Churchville CO

Um... actually, I think you might just be in range of that CO. But
if they're putting a DSLAM within 1k feet of you, great.

-- 
gabriel rosenkoetter
gr@eclipsed.net

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