gabriel rosenkoetter on 9 Nov 2006 02:06:22 -0000 |
On Tue, Nov 07, 2006 at 11:48:15PM -0500, TuskenTower wrote: > I've talked with both Verizon and Cavalier and they have told me > that I am 17700ft from my local CO. DSL reports says that I am 4480ft > from my local CO. The DSL reports site claims that Covad has a CO > closer to me, http://www.dslreports.com/coinfo/clli/KGPRPAKP. If this > is true, then how can I use the Covad CO? Am I forced to go through > them only or can I find another service provider like Speakeasy to run > through the Covad office? With DSL service, there exist three logical entities: the line provider, the DSL provider, and the ISP. Around here, you're stuck with Verizon as the line provider (even if you get your phone service from cavtel it's still V's lines). There are at most a couple of options for the DSL provider (the people who terminate the other end of your "physical" phone line in a building Verizon owns, but possibly in a rack that someone else has a long-term lease on); the only ones I know of are Verizon and Covad, but there may be others (I don't think that Cavalier actually acts as a DSL provider, rather just as an ISP for Verizon-provided DSL service, but I'm speaking out of mostly-ignorance there). There are very many options for an ISP, more if Covad is your DSL provider than if Verizon is, unless I'm mistaken. Two very good ones are Speakeasy (national, a bit more expensive, historically both good and competent customer service) and DCANet (regional, a bit less expensive, smaller organization who simply can't do some things, but very friendly and competent--some people there have and probably still do read this mailing list). I happen to be a Speakeasy subscriber, but it has more to do with what was available when I first opened my account and the ability to maintain that when I move. At least a couple of here have bought me a free month's service by saying that I referred them when opening a Speakeasy account, and if you'd like to too I won't stop you (my username there is grammar), but if I were starting now in the Philly area and intended to be around for a few years, I'd probably go with DCANet. Any one entity can be more than one of these logical units. Only a baby bell can be all three (because they own all the lines), and you'll get screwed on both cost and service, so that's probably not a good idea (if what you want is single-stop-shopping, what you actually want is Comcast). Covad can be your ISP in addition to your DSL provider, but it's really not their specialization, and they're not so much interested in home customers as business ones. Using someone different for each logical unit has its difficulties in communication, especially during installation, but in the long run, it's a reasonable degree of abstraction given the different services each layer provides. If Verizon/Cavtel and DSLReports/Covad are giving you different numbers on distance to a CO, that means that there's a Verizon DSLAM at CO X and a Covad DSLAM at COs X, Y, and Z, where one or both of Y and Z are closer to you geographically. Verizon doesn't, so far as I can tell, put DSLAMs in as many of their COs as DSL providers using their lines may, mostly because they're selling Internet connectivity as an add-on service (as is Comcast, for that matter, though Comcast's doing a much more thorough job of it). We've gone into this in more detail than anybody wants to read in the past... you may want to check the archives. So far as I can tell, the lay of the land hasn't changed much in the past three years. (Only big change is cheap wireless Ethernet through the city of Philadelphia, serviced by Earthlink, and that's not exactly ready for prime time yet. It may be worth seeing if you're covered, but if you want is ample bandwidth, not just any old connection, that may not be for you.) On Wed, Nov 08, 2006 at 08:58:43AM -0500, Eric Hidle wrote: > Heh, I had a terrible experience with SpeakEasy. Care to expand on that? My experience is that all negative experiences with Speakeasy (or with any Covad reseller, for that matter) in the Philadelphia area are actually problems with Verizon. -- gabriel rosenkoetter gr@eclipsed.net Attachment:
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