klem kedidelhopper wrote:


Well I guess that before tearing my house wiring apart I'll go to the
demarc, (after this monster storm the Northeast is having is over) and
see if the line to the CO without the premises wiring in parallel with
it gets me a good connection. The best I can hope for is that it
doesn't. Then I'll know my fight is with the telephone company. That
will be interesting to see what kind of **** they'll give me at that
point as they also provide dialup service, but at 4 times the cost of
my provider.. Lenny
I used to have DSL. Our lines were not great before DSL, and were OK
after, and I used DSL for at least 5 years, first with Telocity, then
DirectTV, and finally Covad. (I think I got that order correct.)
All of these DSL services worked quite well until AT&T bought Southwestern
Bell. Then my lines went terribly bad, constant crackling and hum, and
phone service was even out for days at a time. AT&T's fix was to add over
a MILE of zig-zag trunks all over town, and my DSL just about died at
18,000 feet of wire. I had the demarc box fixed a number of times, the
buried drop from the pole was dug up and replaced 3 or 4 times, and
some buried trunk under the street, etc. was also replaced. After I
got rid of DSL and went to cable, we STILL had phone line trouble, but
they seem to have gotten it working pretty well, lately. Oh, well,
spring lightning season is soon upon us, so it will go bad again.
I changed my business line over from POTS to VOIP and I can't believe
how good it sounds, though. Compared to AT&T it sounds like a recording
studio!

I have internet through Charter Business, pretty expensive, but basically
the only game in town. I need the Business service because I have a
web store, mail server, primary DNS server, file server, etc. at my
house. Once every 18 months or so some imbecile driver goes
airborne and shears off the pole down the street and that sometimes causes
cable trunk problems, the internet keeps on working, but you get a
lot of dropped packets until they get it fixed.

Jon