My experiences so far:<ul><li>Cost: Bellsouth Fastaccess DSL Lite is advertised as US$24.95 a month. There is a US$2.97 Regulatory Cost Recovery Fee as well. Considering that we were paying for Bellsouth Internet Call Waiting on top of our dial-up, DSL Lite is only a tiny, tiny bit more expensive. We will get the DSL “modem” free as long as we stay for twelve months. We will have to pay 50% of it (US$37.50) if we only stay for six months. I hate commitments, but I feel pretty safe with this one. I can return the “modem” within thirty days and back out of the agreement if the service is just absolutely horrible. (By the way, the “modem” is a Westell 6100 with a few changes from Bellsouth. It’s a router with NAT and other acronyms. I guess I have to learn about those now.)</li><li>Installation: I ordered DSL through the Internet on the eighth of February, it was activated on the ninth, and I received my equipment on the tenth. Bellsouth said I would have it by the fourteenth. (Bellsouth has always been very prompt in my experience.) Of course, I connected it via ethernet instead of USB. The installation CD-ROM is not required. If I would have remembered that I disabled the DHCP service a long time ago, installation would have been quick and painless.</li><li>DNS: The DNS servers that were assigned to me were performing terribly yesterday. It took seconds to look something up. Unfortunately, this seems to be an ongoing problem. I’m using a third-party DNS server at the moment.</li><li>Speed: Bellsouth FastAccess DSL Lite is advertised as 256 kbps downstream and 128 kbps upstream. My throughput is 216 kbps downstream and 109 kbps upstream according to multiple online tests. I imagine it’s close enough to the advertised speeds once you consider the overhead. I have a downstream signal-to-noise ratio of 31.0 dB (upstream is 26.0 dB) and downstream line attenuation of 35.5 dB (upstream is 23.0 dB). What I’ve read seems to suggest that those are okay numbers. The DSLAM (I think that’s what you call it) is about 800 metres away.</li></ul>
I think I will be content with DSL Lite. Of course, if my parents ever want to upgrade, I certainly won’t object.
Archived topic from Anythingforums, old topic ID:2657, old post ID:45756
Your cruisin now!!
We use to tease you.