bye-bye AOL. . .

If only it was that easy..... MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Verizon DSL is what we chose. As a point of reference, I work for a telecom company as a system administrator, and my wife has worked as both system and network administrator. We researched all of the systems carefully, and were beta testers for ATT cable.

You may have some trouble with the initial install, but it is worth it. Cable in the area uses shared bandwidth. It can get slow during the evening. Also, the cable companies log every transaction. I can freep-mail you the name of a service provider that works well with DSL in the Dallas area. It is not a national company, and respects it's client's privacy.

/john

I've been happy with Verizon DSL so far (since Aug. 2000)

If I were you, I'd investigate this by going to DSLReports.com (which, despite the name, also contains info regarding cable suppliers as well). They have reviews written by the users of the various companies.

Verizon DSL is what we chose. . .You may have some trouble with the initial install, but it is worth it. Cable in the area uses shared bandwidth. It can get slow during the evening. . .I can freep-mail you the name of a service provider that works well with DSL in the Dallas area. It is not a national company, and respects it's client's privacy. /john

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Many thanks, John! Yes, please FReep-mail or e-mail me that information. I appreciate your help!. . . ;-)

fix

bold off!

I'm on SWBell. I've had decent luck with it after they ironed out some serious e-mail problems -- which only took them six months!

Cable in the area uses shared bandwidth

Of course, so does DSL. :-)

DLS has separate relatively low-speed connections (maximum 1.5Mb/sec, typically 0.4 to 0.8Mb/sec) from each house to the central office. Cable has high-speed connections (at least 30Mb/sec) from groups of houses to the central office. From the central office, both types of service share the ISP's available bandwidth. And, I guarentee that the bandwidth between the central office and the Internet is much lower than the combined bandwidth of all of their subscribers. They all rely on the fact that most connections are idle most of the time.

I've had a cablemodem system for about four years, and it's at least as fast today as it was when they first introduced it. In fact, I've worked at several high-tech companies over that time, and my home connection was always faster than the dedicated connections I've had at work. I'm often able to download multiple simultaneous CDROM imgages at a sustained rate of over 5Mb/sec.

It's entirely possible that your cable provider has oversubscribed, and is therefore offering inferior service. But that's a business decision on their part, not a technical limitation. A properly configured cablemodem system will usually offer much higher speeds than a DSL system.

bttt

Well, folks I called Verizon today to get service started on their DSL and they sent me an e-mail:

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Mr. Meek,
We are sorry to inform you, but DSL is not avaliable in your area at this time. You are 22,000 ft. from your Central Office and that is too far out. If you have any questions please call 1-877-483-5070.
Sorry again for the inconvenience.
Tamara

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So I guess I’ll pick up my research again.

If any of you have any other ideas or suggestions, I would appreciate any input. If you want to bump someone else for input, that's great, too.

I suppose I’ll start by reviewing the link you sent to me (on post #5), John (Jorsett). I appreciate you posting that here!

Dallas Mike: You indicated some startup problems with SW Bell. Otherwise, your service is great you say? Would you recommend them and haven’t had any other issues with them?

Thank you all for you time, effort and help!

Richard Meek
Rowlett, Texas (Dallas County - far NE Dallas Co.)

Link to another DSL/Cable thread:

Should I get DSL or cable at home??

I researched the DSL versus cable modem also. I am like you in the fact that I'm too far away to get DSL.
I went the cable modem route and have been very happy with them.
I don't live in Dallas though, I live in Kansas City suburbs.
If you're too far away for DSL, cable modem or satellite modem is pretty much the only two ways to go for fast connections.

I am using Southwestern Bell DSL. The connection has been outstanding and, surprisingly no problems after setup. I have found a couple downsides: 1) There is a delay of about a month after you sign up before the connection is activated. 2) the customer service is less than helpful when you do run into problems. I have had a couple billing errors, and it is difficult to resolve them. If you run across a smaller company with better customer service, I would go that direction. Also, let me know! I have heard Earthlink has good service here, but I have not researched it.

Richard,

It took several months for SWBell to acknowledge that they had a problem with e-mail at one of their north Dallas routers that was affecting several hundred subscribers. I'm still ticked off at them for that because for most of that time, they were telling me that I was the only having problems. Since then though, I really have no complaints.

-Mike

My experience with AT&T Broadband was hair pullingly horrific, they contract out to installers that have no clue. After two months of dealing with "select your option" that would finally land me with some dry bored employee that would tell me we will come right to your rescue in "10 working days", I gave up after two and a half months of off and on phone service and went with SW Bell DSL, it works fine.

Rowlett, Texas (Dallas County - far NE Dallas Co.)

Hi, Neighbor! Nice town you live in. Hope to move there in a few years. (I am in Garland.)

Well, not doing so well. It looks as thought I may be stuck with Cable? One of you had mentioned something about satellite modem for faster Internet. Can one of you give me some information about that? Thanks!

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E-Mail from Earthlink:

Dear Richard Meek,

Recently, you submitted your name and phone number to our EarthLink DSL waiting list. We just rechecked the number you submitted and unfortunately, our records show that your number is still not eligible for our EarthLink DSL service.

The coverage area for EarthLink DSL gets wider every week, so we make a point of regularly checking and rechecking the numbers on our waiting list.

We value your interest in EarthLink DSL and want you to know that we will continue to check your DSL serviceability status. Should your line become serviceable for DSL, we will make every effort to contact you.

If you would rather not receive these communications in the future please click here: http://www.earthlink.net/dsl/opt-out

Thank you for your patience and, once again, thank you for choosing EarthLink!

Sincerely,

The EarthLink Broadband Sales Team

AT&T Broadband

Get cable, you won't be disappointed.