thinking of switching to DSL, good idea?

[Flasch186]

I pay ~$60 for comcast cable internet (they throw in the basic cable but I watch DirectTV instead).

DSL will give $250 cash back (rebates)

I already have phone service and directtv so the DSL 6.0 would be $32.95/mo.

I use a slingbox though to watch football games on the weekend so transfer speeds are fairly important to me although I do not do any online gaming that requires fast super fast speeds. I do not foresee that in my future either.

this is the speeds for that package:

6 Mbps/512 Kbps

Should I make this switch? Financially it seems wise but will i regret it or the service?

[Radii]

Makes perfect sense to me. Throw in the fact that if you cancel you never have to deal with Comcast again and its a no brainer.

[Barkeep49]

Happiness really varies by local. We used to have cable but it was flakey and unreliable. The consistency of DSL has been great even if it can't go as fast at times (though at times it's slightly faster than the low end of what we got with cable). But YMMV so ask your neighbors.

[Subby]

Hold out for FIOS. Don't even use the internet until it gets to your neighborhood.

[Apathetic Lurker]

Happiness really varies by local. We used to have cable but it was flakey and unreliable. The consistency of DSL has been great even if it can't go as fast at times (though at times it's slightly faster than the low end of what we got with cable). But YMMV so ask your neighbors.

I had the opposite experience. My DSL service(Verizon) was very unreliable going out a total of 11 times in 5 months. I switched to TW Cable 1 week before our "October Surpreise" here. We lost phone service for a month(thanks Verizon!) , DirectTV for three weeks, but our TW cable never had a problem ever. Go figure...

[Warhammer]

I've had a total of one issue with DSL over the last 7 years. That was because some moron took out a telephone pole between here and the switch...

[Peregrine]

I've been told by a friend that worked for a DSL company for a long time that you need to find out how far you are from the nearest central office (CO) to determine how reliable your service is. He said that you want to be within 10,000 feet of the CO for good pings while gaming, beyond that it can be intermittent.

You can find where the COs are near you at this site:

http://www.dslreports.com/coinfo

[Flasch186]

i just checked and im good CO wise as I have 3 within 17 miles of me which is where 10000ft caps out at.

One other thing concerns me. My house is home networked meaning I have my Comcast modem and router in the box in the closet. Would the DSL modem go in there as well? Would the phone line go in there from the street and then route out through the Linksys router I now have? Is it that easy or am I missing something about the installation (im trying to bypass the $99 install fee).

[Barkeep49]

You don't need a new router or anything. As long as you have a phone line that goes where your router is, it would be that easy. You will, however, need DSL filters for your phones so that they continue to work correctly.

[Axxon]

I've been told by a friend that worked for a DSL company for a long time that you need to find out how far you are from the nearest central office (CO) to determine how reliable your service is. He said that you want to be within 10,000 feet of the CO for good pings while gaming, beyond that it can be intermittent.

You can find where the COs are near you at this site:

http://www.dslreports.com/coinfo

I work troubleshooting DSL too and this is what I would have posted if you hadn't already. Distance is the key. I am within a quarter mile of my CO and I get a perfect connection. I never got close with cable and until now, dsl had never been able to touch my cable connections in the past.

[FrogMan]

i just checked and im good CO wise as I have 3 within 17 miles of me which is where 10000ft caps out at.


okay, I'm nitpicking here, you sure that your numbers are right here? 17 miles is probably a lot more than 10000ft. I don't do feet very well, what's with being born in the metric system and all, but from what I thought I knew, there are a lot of feet in a mile (had to google to find it's 5280 ;)) so either your numbers are not right or you are in for a big surprise... Just saying...

Very interesting discussion though, I learned a lot.

FM

[FrogMan]

dola, among other useless trivia, did you know that you can use google as a calculator? Or even a metric to imperial converter?

Try googling "38 C in F", it'll give you the Celsius to Farenheit conversion, cool.

FM

[RendeR]

If your not within 1 mile of a switch you will never see those transfer speeds. Make sure you are at least within 1.5 miles of a switch or the connection won't be any better than dialup.

With DSL distance == gold, the farther away you get the worse the signal degrades.

If yer not close to a switch, wait for FIOS, its about the same cost and its fiber optic with no distance limitations.

[Tasan]

okay, I'm nitpicking here, you sure that your numbers are right here? 17 miles is probably a lot more than 10000ft. I don't do feet very well, what's with being born in the metric system and all, but from what I thought I knew, there are a lot of feet in a mile (had to google to find it's 5280 ;)) so either your numbers are not right or you are in for a big surprise... Just saying...

Very interesting discussion though, I learned a lot.

FM

As an educated American, I can verify that claim ;- ) You need to look at your math again and check the distances again, because as a former DSL tech I can definately tell you that 17 miles is way too far to be comfortable about your connection.

[Tasan]

If your not within 1 mile of a switch you will never see those transfer speeds. Make sure you are at least within 1.5 miles of a switch or the connection won't be any better than dialup.

With DSL distance == gold, the farther away you get the worse the signal degrades.

If yer not close to a switch, wait for FIOS, its about the same cost and its fiber optic with no distance limitations.

Here's the great thing about how all this is working right now. As long as the local box in your neighborhood has a fiber connection to it, you don't have to be as close anymore with DSL, just close enough to the closest fiber connected box.

[Cringer]

I have had DSL for 4 years or so now. Never had a problem. I live in a "smaller" area I guess, so my only complaint is that I can't get SBC Yahoo's fastest speed that they would have in San Antonio or bigger areas like that.

The speed is still good for me. No problem with streaing video or anything else I do.

[Axxon]

I have had DSL for 4 years or so now. Never had a problem. I live in a "smaller" area I guess, so my only complaint is that I can't get SBC Yahoo's fastest speed that they would have in San Antonio or bigger areas like that.

The speed is still good for me. No problem with streaing video or anything else I do.

You mean ATT Yahoo now.

[Cringer]

You mean ATT Yahoo now.

Oh yeah. I have trouble keeping up with the name changes. :cool:

[Axxon]

Oh yeah. I have trouble keeping up with the name changes. :cool:

This one was actually pretty smart PR wise.

[Terps]

I had no problem with DSL in my old house, but the CO wasn't even a half a mile away, and that was only 3 MBps speed. I think I have 20 MBps now with my cable.

[14ers]

I had the opposite experience. My DSL service(Verizon) was very unreliable going out a total of 11 times in 5 months. I switched to TW Cable 1 week before our "October Surpreise" here. We lost phone service for a month(thanks Verizon!) , DirectTV for three weeks, but our TW cable never had a problem ever. Go figure...
DirectTV for three weeks; You lost your satelite TV signal for 3 weeks? I have not heard anything about DirecTV service being shut down for 3 weeks. Do you live on the wrong side of the moon or was your satelite dish involved in some type of accident?

[Subby]

I had no problem with DSL in my old house, but the CO wasn't even a half a mile away, and that was only 3 MBps speed. I think I have 20 MBps now with my cable.
You can find out for sure here:

http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest?flash=1

[SteveMax58]

Here's the great thing about how all this is working right now. As long as the local box in your neighborhood has a fiber connection to it, you don't have to be as close anymore with DSL, just close enough to the closest fiber connected box.

What he said.

[SteveMax58]

If your not within 1 mile of a switch you will never see those transfer speeds. Make sure you are at least within 1.5 miles of a switch or the connection won't be any better than dialup.

With DSL distance == gold, the farther away you get the worse the signal degrades.

If yer not close to a switch, wait for FIOS, its about the same cost and its fiber optic with no distance limitations.

I would agree with this normally...but if Flasch lives in the Jax area, I do not believe FiOS is going to be available any time soon to him. I could be wrong, but generally speaking the investment needed to give him the DSL speeds they are offerring him would not normally suggest to me that they have any intention of rolling out FiOS shortly.

[Flasch186]

i dont understand that testing site. Its showing me the results with Comcast. I know what I have with Comcast but is there a way to test what DSL would be like before switching?

[RendeR]

I had the opposite experience. My DSL service(Verizon) was very unreliable going out a total of 11 times in 5 months. I switched to TW Cable 1 week before our "October Surpreise" here. We lost phone service for a month(thanks Verizon!) , DirectTV for three weeks, but our TW cable never had a problem ever. Go figure...


Please explain your Dtv service problem. I have Dtv too and we never lost the signal for more than a few munites (the time it took me to hose off the snow on the dish) There was no widespread outage of satelite service in the area during that storm. Did your dish get damaged? or perhaps a line from the dish broke due to the weather?

Sounds very strange.

[Apathetic Lurker]

DirectTV for three weeks; You lost your satelite TV signal for 3 weeks? I have not heard anything about DirecTV service being shut down for 3 weeks. Do you live on the wrong side of the moon or was your satelite dish involved in some type of accident?

When it was installed they did a half-assed job of it. They never attached it correctly and installed a defective dish. The sad thing was that when the next genius showed up he told me what was done wrong AND proceeded to screw up the repair. My DirectTV signal was good on most days but anytime a cloud showed up or a light breeze hit I lost signal. This is not a good thing during football season in the NE. When the next two guys showed up to fix it, they replaced the dish and cut about 45 ft of leftover cable the other bozo stuffed into the gutter and removed the base the bozo left attached to the roof. Next time it goes I wont be doing DirectTV anymore

[Apathetic Lurker]

Please explain your Dtv service problem. I have Dtv too and we never lost the signal for more than a few munites (the time it took me to hose off the snow on the dish) There was no widespread outage of satelite service in the area during that storm. Did your dish get damaged? or perhaps a line from the dish broke due to the weather?

Sounds very strange.


See my answer to 14ers. I think my main problem is Verizon though. I got DirectTV through them and the "installers" they subcontract to. Did register a complaint to DirectTV though, but dont know if it did any good.

[Flasch186]

SO here is the problem:

I just received the self install box. In it is the modem which has 2 ports:

1 DSL for a regular phone line (from the street into this port)
1 Ethernet port for the "out"

In the box in my closet, where the phone line from the street terminates, it terminates in a cat5e head. this will not fit into the smaller DSL port of the modem.

The only rooms in the house that have regular phone ports would make this setup impossible as I would lose home networking by not housing all of this in the box in the closet.

What should I do? Is there a converter?

If this wont work Im afraid comcast will officially have me by the cojones.

BTW their tech support guy was pretty much at a loss and said I would need to have someone run a regular RJXX line to the box.

[Flasch186]

update:

I got it to work by plugging in the feed like normal into the switcher's in and then plugging in the DSL filter into the "service" out. It took a few hours and 3 phonecalls to their tech support to get the modem bridged and the router to work but now it works. What I lose is the phone line to my alarm monitoring but Ive had that turned off for years since my dogs will attack anyone who breaks in and there is someone home most of the day and night.

Seems fast and I can call Comcast to cancel their asses tomorrow!! WOOHOO!!