I just went through the DSL thing here in New Jersey, with Bell Atlantic. I don't know anything about service in Texas (obviously), but here's what I went through, for what it's worth. After my DSL service was orderd, Bell Atlantic (BA) sent me a package via UPS containing my DSL modem, an assortment of microfilters, and some phone cord. Since a technician was to come out to the house, and complete the installation, I just left everything in the box, untouched, until the technician would be there to install it 2 weeks later. It turns out all the technician did was install the software, which was no harder than installing any other windows software (no Linux support from BA). I had to install all the hardware, which was quite easy. All I had to do was plug the DSL modem into a jack and into the NIC on my PC and install the microfilters on all the non-ADSL phone jacks. All the microfilters do is filter out the higher frequencies used by DSL. They aren't necessary for it to work, but a high pitch whine *may* be heard when talking on the phone while DSL is active. After the technicial installed the software, he started a special version of Netscape that went to a special site where a java app was used to actually create my account, which BA had not done yet. After over 2 weeks of waiting, I still had to actually set up my account myself. This is where the fun began... When I tried to set up my account, it failed on the final step, after I entered all the billing info. I was instructed by the error message to call an 800 number. After spending about 14 total hours on hold (spread over on work week) I finally got through to someone who could setup my account manually for me. It took about 2 minutes. The password they gave me was only alphanumeric characters, so I tried to change it to something that used shift-characters. Turns out such password were not allowed. I suspect this is why my account setup wouldn't work for me - I was trying to create a password with a "!" in it. You would thinkg that the account setup software would check for this sort of thing... I haven't been able to confirm this. A few weeks after my service went up, it went down for about 4 days straight. Nothing, Nada, zip. 14 day outage is ridiculous. This is the phone company - a baby bell, no less. You would think they could correct such outages quickly. Only hours after the service was restored, my Westell modem died for no reason. I called BA again. They said new one would be FedExed to me and to be waiting at home to sign for it at 10:30 the next day. A week later and 4 phone calls later, still no modem. Finally I called Westell, and they sent me a new one via UPS. It was shipped a day after I called them. Two weeks later, I called BA to cancel the order for a new modem. It still had not been sent... Now that my service is up, I love it. It's extremely quick, my phone stays open, I'm always connected, and unlike a cable modem, my bandwidth isn't shared. Also, BA allows more than one PC to use the DSL modem (via a LAN and some sort of masquerading, etc.), but they don't support it ( although they plan to in the future). The local cable companies require a cable modem for each PC connected to it - IP masquerading type activities are frowned upon. I now have a second Linux machine acting as a firewall, and it works fine. The moral of this long, boring story is this: No matter which ISP you use for your DSL, you still need to get DSL service to your home through the phone company. Even though your phone company may be great for phone stuff, that doesn't mean they have the infrastructure or know-how to support DSL service properly. Unless you have a lot of patience or like being on the cutting-edge, find someone in your areas who has been using DSL for a while so see what problems they had. On Fri, 31 Mar 2000, Ahbaid Gaffoor wrote: > Hello all, > > what's a good DSL subscriber to use in the Dallas TX area? > > There are many, but I want one that's RH Linux friendly... > > Also, are there special cards you would need for this? I have never done > anything with DSL, I just know it's faster than a dial-up... > > any tips, suggestions, URL references are welcome. > > Thanks folks, > > Ahbaid. > > > -- > To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe" > as the Subject. -- Prentice Bisbal [EMAIL PROTECTED] Princeton Plasma Physics Lab http://www.pppl.gov -- To unsubscribe: mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe" as the Subject.
