Good residential DSL providers?

[bill at horne.net (Bill Horne)]

Grant M. wrote:
> Scott R Ehrlich wrote:
>   
>> I'm not looking for ultra high speed - 768/384 adsl works fine for me.
>>
>> Thanks for any insight/feedback.
>>     
>
> Ok, here goes the flame war ;-).
>   
I don't want to flame you: let's just call this a disagreement. ;-)
> I use Verizon DSL with some caveats: I don't use their DNS servers (they
> are about as reliable as a Yugo taxi cab) and I don't use their email
> address.
>
> [snip]
>
> Since I have been manually entering my DNS server (I use the servers
> that I maintain, so I know they are at least reasonable reliable), I
> have not had a single service outage (about 3 years).
>
> With that said, and the price being more than respectable compared to
> others, I think it's a reasonable option. (Your mileage may vary).
> Thanks,
> Grant M.
>   

Grant,

I disagree, although not for technical reasons.

Verizon's DSL service is marketed to consumers, and priced to undercut 
the DSL competition. It is intended to deny DSL revenue to potential 
rivals, and to push them out of the market by slow strangulation. Since 
few consumers know anything about data comm, let alone ADSL, Verizon is 
pushing their service with the idea that all DSL is the same, and that 
price should be the only factor in your choice.

In addition, Verizon DSL is drastically limited by artificial restraints 
like port blocking. Verizon wants to undercut its competitors, but it's 
also wary of undercutting itself: most medium-to-large-sized businesses 
pay for T-1 lines, which are _very_ profitable for Verizon, so the 
company has gerrymandered the DSL offering to cripple it for business 
use: they have both TOS and port blocking restrictions designed to make 
DSL useless to businessmen who want to run their own servers.

I used to have Comcast service, but I disconnected it when Comcast 
started doing the same tricks: restricting ports (and denying they were 
doing it), forbidding servers, etc. Although I considered Verizon's ADSL 
to replace it, the information I got from this group and others made it 
clear that Comcast and Verizon are merely two sides of the monopolist's 
coin: both think of home-based computers as entertainment delivery 
systems, no different than TV sets. Both are in the business of offering 
eyeballs to advertisers, and are doing whatever they can to coral as 
many users as possible, so that they can charge by the head and collect 
a tax on all content traveling over "their" wires.

Because I didn't wan to play Comcast's or Verizon's games, I use 
Speakeasy. It's a Covad-provided ADSL line, and it costs about 1.8 times 
what Verizon would charge. In return for the extra money, I get better 
bandwidth, cluefull tech support that speaks American English, a fixed 
IP address, 24-hour turnaround on borken equipment (my modem died, but 
was under warranty), and a "bits are bits" attitude. I _could_ have 
worked around Verizon's restrictions, e.g., by using dynamic DNS 
providers and port shifting, but in the end I decided that I should 
reward Speakeasy for being a better service provider.

FWIW. YMMV.

Bill
P.S. I am not affiliated with Speakeasy, don't own any stock, etc. I'm 
just a satisfied customer.

-- 
E. William Horne
William Warren Consulting
Computer and Network Installations & Service
781-784-7287
http://www.william-warren.com/


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