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"High speed Internet"

I was thinking about shedding the landline for phone service and using VoIP.

I did that when I switched to AT&T UVerse for high speed internet, but note that the backup battery supplied will only keep the system up for a few hours (not so great for earthquake country) and I had to disconnect my beloved Model 554 rotary wall phone although I think one can find pulse to tone adapters.
 
I was thinking about shedding the landline for phone service and using VoIP.

I gave that some serious thought, however, here southeast Michigan, home of the AT&T local long distance charge policy (in most cases you can't even phone across the county without a toll charge), I would have to pay a premium for my DSL if not for the phone service, so the difference wouldn't be worth the hassle. Same goes with Comcast. A standard cable modem with normal cable service runs about $40 or so per month. That same stand alone cable modem goes for about $69.00. So, they gotcha. And why is the situation like this? The answer lies with the Michigan "Public Services Commission", all politically inspired.
 
Other times, small ISPs would simply cease operation without notification. Fun times.

I've had that happen just two years ago. I was working for a small start up, we were delivering 1.5+ to rural areas using Motorola's Microwave technology. I can't even remember the name of it now, but it was neat stuff. Our venture capitalist pulled out because we weren't getting the subscribers fast enough (that was the first blow) and then the tower we were renting space on had their "radio shack" go up in flames in which it took months to get it going again and we had apparently no SLA with the tower owner. Most of our customer base despite having in their contract a SSTB (so sad, too bad) flew the coop for the Verizon JetPack. We had the better deal I thought with unlimited bandwidth but that didn't matter. By the end of the year we were done.
 
I may still have the emails (I was using UUCP for email back then and have saved quite a few archives). At any rate, the guy running the local ISP operation changed his IP address and somehow forgot to change the nameserver records for two weeks. Thank heavens I still had a Compuserve account to fall back on for email and was still running a BBS.

When I finally got his attention, he responded that there was no need to be abusive (I'd used the h*ll and d*mn words) and that he felt that he would be perfectly within the spirit of the contract to terminate service. This was the same guy who, after I canceled the contract, refused to release the domain for transfer (he was listed as the domain, administrator). If you'll recall--the only outfit who parceled out domains back then was Network Solutions--and they did their business via FAX and required proof of ID and even notarized affidavits--and they worked slowly.

Good times.
 
Only recently did my unincorporated area get fiber. Prior to that, it was cable, period (too far from the DSLAM), and Time Worthless sat on their hands for six weeks until I wrote a complaint letter to the FCC and got released from my contract (to be fair, they never charged me, they just didn't do any installation).

So since I needed a hard line for my home servers, I gritted my teeth and bought a T1. It's still incredibly exorbitant, and ironically comes to the house over HDSL, but I have no caps, no questions, no latency and no neighbours encroaching on my DOCSIS timeslice. Plus, it's tariffed and has an SLA, so I'm always referred to level 2, and any issues get fixed the same day. The downside is it's still just 1.5 both ways and it required both phone pairs to the house (one for tip and one for ring). It turns out I don't miss having a landline, though.

Fiber came in January of this year. I'm still on my T1 contract, but I'm not sure if I'll switch. The level of service I get is very good and I know I can always count on the bandwidth. Haven't decided yet.

Good ol' HDSL. HTUCs and Rs are what I first started writing embedded software on professionally several years back. These days ethernet switches for DSLAMs. Ah, memories.
 
I gave that some serious thought, however, here southeast Michigan, home of the AT&T local long distance charge policy (in most cases you can't even phone across the county without a toll charge), I would have to pay a premium for my DSL if not for the phone service, so the difference wouldn't be worth the hassle. Same goes with Comcast. A standard cable modem with normal cable service runs about $40 or so per month. That same stand alone cable modem goes for about $69.00. So, they gotcha. And why is the situation like this? The answer lies with the Michigan "Public Services Commission", all politically inspired.

Update

Maybe AT&T is feeling a little heat from the field. I was able to upgrade my home phone and DSL service for only $51.00 monthly for 12 months. After the deal runs its course, the rate will jump to $87 per month, which is about $5 more than the current rate. The phone and DSL are now both VOIP, with the DSL on a separate line. The phone service adds unlimited long distance calling which is part of the package. The DSL package advertised 6 MB down. A quick speed check on AT&T's site shows about 6.7 MB down which is fine. Proportionally, a lot more realistic than the pitiful .74 GB up. There are various residential increments available all the way to 18 MB down, however, the top end not presently available in my area. This is all a welcome change, as the old system only provided about 2.8 down of the advertised 3.0, and a paltry .28 up. The tech told me that I wouldn't live long enough to see fiber in my area. He said that the emphases is on 'new construction'.
 
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Got an update here as well.

It seems that Century Link's buried copper has been sliding down the hill (soil movement) for the last few years and they were faced with replacing it (very expensive) or doing something different. So this summer they've been stringing fiber on the (electrical) utility poles, which terminates at the "telephone temple" right in front of my house. There's a new 200-pair cable running down the hill to provide service to my neighbors. Crews have been fitting new units inside the cabinets at the telephone temple. I witnessed them installing a buried interconnect between two boxes--1800 pairs(!). It took special equipment just to unwind the bugger from its spool. At any rate, they expect to be complete sometime in August. The nice part is that the setup, since the fiber's also carrying voice circuits (POTS) will have its own backup batteries, which means that I'll have internet connectivity even when the power fails. This was gathered by chatting with the guys doing the work at the "telephone temple", so I imagine that it's pretty reliable.

So I've got my fingers crossed...
 
UK is fortunate, something like 75% of the population can get either FTTC or cable. Sadly business are second fiddle to residential areas, which means there's a big gap between 1/8Mbps standard DSL (maybe £30pm) and a 30/30Mbps leased line (£300pm+) for many smaller businesses.
 
I was talking to comcast earlier this week, and I'm now "on the list" for the first batch of fiber installs in my area.

I got a "promo" rate of $150/month, but I still need to come up with a $500 deposit and $500 install. I have until december to pay it, because that's when the install will start.

2GB internet over fiber... OH YEA BABY.
 
But anyway, I say a discussion on a local reddit page and it was telling how what internet access you had could change the value of your home by a LARGE margin.

13 years ago when I bought my house, AT&T was introducing U-verse and DSL in my area. They were pulling fiber, and upgrading their distribution equipment. For whatever reason, they didn't finish out area, and 13 years later, they still haven't updated the segment I'm on. I dropped their landline service, and when they asked why I was dropping them, I told them about how for the last 10 (at the time) years I received advertising DSL and U-verse, however when I call it's not available. When I asked when it would be available, they said it should be soon. I heard rumors they're going to drop landline service in my area completely, and get their current customers switched over to cell phones.

Comcast is available a mile down the road, however they have a "20 house per mile" regarding where they will install service. There's only 5 houses between me and them.
 
I may still have the emails (I was using UUCP for email back then and have saved quite a few archives). At any rate, the guy running the local ISP operation changed his IP address and somehow forgot to change the nameserver records for two weeks. Thank heavens I still had a Compuserve account to fall back on for email and was still running a BBS.Good times.

I think we had the same ISP in those times--:}

I had to run a FULL frame relay setup to the house, to get decent bandwidth back in '96, and the ISP guy was a pig! He constantly was going up and down, and I never got an explanation out of him. I think I also had some early domain problems with him, but I switched almost immediately to dealing straight with NS--yeah they were REAL fun to work with!

Now, I have Frontier FIOS 150/150, and I can honestly say; they have been OK! (I better find some wood to knock on right away)

You'll LOVE fiber!
gwk
 
I had to run a FULL frame relay setup to the house, to get decent bandwidth back in '96, ...
I thought I was the only one with a whopping 56k frame relay in my house, around the same time. It took up 2 of my 3 pairs of telco wires to the house, so GTE had to install a mux to get two voice lines to the house over 1 pair. Our isp was PSI, they were actually pretty good for the day.
 
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