Verizon DSL

[Brandystew]

Anyone have experience with Verizon DSL in their home?

Thanks

(To send e-mail, remove NOSPAM from address)

[Al Reid]

Yes, I have been using Verizon DSL since May 2002. It is reasonably fast (not as fast as the cable service I had before I moved) and reliable. My only complaint is that the IP address changes way to frequently, but that is probably not relevant.

[Mike]

[e-mail] (Brandystew) wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Yes, what do you want to know?

I've had a 1.5mbs/384kbs for two years to our house in FL, business service with a static IP and my own email server. In that time we've had four outages, one due to a config change on IP ranges without notification, two due to gateway issues resolved after calls to tech support. One due to a powersupply fault on the router.modem at our end, which the came out and fixed withing four hours of the call. Other than those problems its worked fine and has always maintained bandwidth as far as we can measure. It's usefull getting all our telephone and internet charges on on bill. Sales group and pricing are usually pretty good. Getting anything implemented other than a service defined in the sales brochure is a lottery as to whether they can put it in correctly. If you have a support problem then expect a long time on the phone. The call queues are usually long. The implementation and support groups are split by function and geography and they don't talk to each other. For example the DNS group are all but useless, the people looking after the verizon gateways are very good. Anything to do with hosting or backbone issues are another company entirely.

hth

[Ol' Texan]

About a year and a half ago, I gave them a try. First they told me it wasn't available in my area; and my incoming wires were no good. Well, my apartment is in a building 1 FOOT from the verizon building, and the wires are the old heavy copper ones.....they said I was too far away. Well, when I convinced them 1 FOOT wasn't too far, they hooked it up, but could never get it to work. However they did manage to continue to bill me for it for over a year, and after a lot of screaming they finally credited

10 months back to me.

Gee, maybe they are better now??

However, at my other place, I have Comcast cable and can't say enough good things about them. Once my modem died, and they had a new one to me in 1

1/2 hours. Can't beat that.

[Joe AutoDrill]

Just got it last night. Good telephone service then the CD didn't work.

375 upload speeds, 1800+ DL speeds.

Northern, NJ...

[Silvan]

No, not in my home. I live in Fiberoptic Junction, and can't get DSL here.

I have, however, set up Verizon DSL for two clients. The process in my case involved doing a network installation of Debian Linux, and downloading somewhere around 500 MB of packages from the fastest available server. I found at both locations that the download speed was around 150 Kps. This is less than half the speed of cable, but the difference between 5 Kps and

150 Kps is plenty enough to grab your attention and make you think you just put a rocket ship in your computer.

The only measure of reliability I have is whether or not people call me with problems. They would call me to deal with Verizon for them (a free part of the service) and I haven't had to call Verizon yet. One of them has been running for about a year now.

All in all, it's a pretty good deal. As an installer, I prefer using a router for my own benefit. Routers eliminate the need to futz with all the fiddly PPPoE configuration nonsense, and save me effort. The most recent install came with a router as part of the package, and I think perhaps that is because Verizon themselves recognize how much easier life is when you let the router manage that stuff transparently.

Like every other format of broadband I have experienced, Windows is pretty much inescapable for getting the ball rolling the first time. Once the modem is provisioned, it no longer matters what platform you're running. However, it's probably necessary to keep a copy of Windows in your pocket somewhere in case you ever have to provision a new modem at some point in the future.

[Tom]

Have had it for over a year now, very few problems. Am in former GTE territory, so I avoid the PPPoE nonsense. The VZ software is pretty intrusive, dumped all that, it didn't do anything useful anyway. Use of a firewall is absolutely, positively mandatory! Receive about one virus infection attempt per second. VZ does not filter the ports, so you see lots of probes.

-- Tom

[Larry Blanchard]

OK, as a dialup customer, the term "provision a modem" is new to me. Was ist?

[rcook5]

The critical distance with DSL isn't the distance to the Verizon office, it's the distance to the local phone company's switch. And it _is_ critical. So is the quality of the lines. The fact that they're old is not a point in their favor.

Short form: I'm not sure they were giving you the runaround and anyone considering DSL needs to check those two factors.

I got Earthlink and I had about a three-week fight before we got the connection working reliably.

Not that I'd reccomend Earthlink. They outsourced their customer support to India a couple of years ago and service has gone absolutely to hell.

--RC

Sleep? Isn't that a totally inadequate substitute for caffine?

[Howard]

For an interesting alternative to both DSL and cable, see

I hope that the fear of credible competition puts some service back into this market. Unfortunately, it's more likely that the established providers will fight this with politics and lawsuits.

[Mark & Juanita]

If you don't know where you are going ... It pretty much doesn't matter how you get there.

[Doug Winterburn]

Where ever you go, there you are.

[Larry Jaques]

On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 10:45:01 -0700, Doug Winterburn calmly ranted:

How can you be in two places at once, when you're not anywheeere at aaaaaaall?

-- SAVE THE PARROTS! Eschew the use of poly! ----------

Poly-free Website Development

[John]

I have Verizon DSL in Maryland. It's been up for about a year with no problems at all. I get excellant upload/download speeds. Verizon differs greatly from place to place, what you really need to look at is how it runs in your area. Go to

and you can search for reports specific to your area.

Jo

[Lowell Holmes]

and you take yourself with you.

[TomL]

I've had Verizon DSL in NE NJ since day one. The first year was not good. Since then they've become very reliable. In my area, DSL is much less costly than cable. If you frequent the Newsgroups you'll find Verizon wins out over cable in retention and completion. The downside? Technical support. Do get yourself a gateway router to use as a firewall and eliminate the need to install that dreadful PPOE and Verizon software.

TomL

[Joe]

Do tell me more about this please... Just got DSL and was thinking of using the provided modem/router combo unit for the house as it is both wired and wireless.

[Han]

TomL wrote in news:bq2gq05umuc1hn0l5smub03007erhs4gua@

4ax.com:

That's an important point: NEVER install the stuff on the Verizon CD. DO get a router (VZ may give you the router/modem combo thingy (Westell

327 I believe). DO use the VZ supplied cable for the connection between the telephone wall jack and the modem (it's special twisted wire, rather than the flat phone cord). Do try to get the straigthest most direct inside wiring (preferably cat5) from the NID to the modem. DO put filters on all other phone equipment.

See HiEv's pages here for more help:

[Mark Jerde]

In Maryland, near Washington DC, Verizon sends new DSL customers a combination DSL modem / router / 4-port hub / wireless hub. At least that's what they sent friends of mine, who I help get connected three weekends ago. It was relatively painless to get set up, although it did take one call to tech support. The user name and password for the modem wasn't included in the documentation.

-- Mark

[Silvan]

You don't need to worry about it with the new modem/router they're offering.