[wplug] cheap DSL in Pittsburgh?

Brian A. Seklecki lavalamp at spiritual-machines.org
Thu Jan 20 10:45:30 EST 2005


Zach/Bryon/SMK et al:

You don't want ADSL; and you don't want to do business with Verizon;
despite what the speeds may be, and what prices www.verizon.net promises
($30/month, ATM).  You also don't want to do business with any local ISP
that resells Verizon ADSL, either.  Stargate made that mistake.

Asynchronous service may be appealing for some residential customers,
but for anyone else, once you look past all the fine print and into the
technical details, you'll be wondering why you signed your self into
that 1 year contract.

For the above-average user, you should probably find SDSL service in
your area.  Covad is a national company, but I encourage you to
investigate North Pittsburgh Systems / Penn Telecom SDSL service.  They
don't actually sell SDSL themselves, but they co-locate Paradyne MVL
HotWire ReachDSL SDSL DSLAMs at Verizon's COs.  They have resellers
(Local ISPs) who buy ATM trunks, and then provide IP services.

Other reasons:

1) Filters?! Get lost.  NPTC/PennTele runs a brand new pair of copper
all the way from the CO to your NID.  In my case, they even installed a
new NID.  For IW (Inside Wiring), they even pulled a new pair of Cat5 to
my DEMARC.  They assign the pair a Circuit ID and provide a
auto-loopback RJ48x.

2) PPPoE is all kidns of bad.  They ship you a Westel 2100, 2200, or the
newer wireless model (which has a firmware made by Wind River
systems..so maybe embeded BSD).  Instead of sending a DSL bridge (called
a "modem" most of the time), it actually functions as a router.  You can
reconfig the PVCs into bridged mode and disable DHCP+NAT/PAT using the
web interface, but that's ugly, because now your router or workstation
has to do PPPoE.

3) Most companies will cut you anywhere from a /26 to a /29 for static
IP space for a dirty-DMZ or a NAT pool if you ask nicely.

4) Free Bridge ("Modem) .. no "A $12.95 shipping and handling charge
will apply to DSL order" (See fine text at verizon.net)

5) Local companies, local support.

Check it out:

http://www.penntelecom.com/services.dsl.html
http://www.penntelecom.com/services.dsl.html
http://www.penntelecom.com/services.dsl.html
http://www.penntelecom.com/services.dsl.html

~Bri


On Thu, 2005-01-20 at 10:06, smk wrote:
> Is that a residential rate for telerama ADSL service?
> 
> Cheapest would have to be verizon which I believe is around $40/month
> after promotion. 
> 
> 
> On Thu, 20 Jan 2005, Zachary Uram wrote:
> 
> > what is cheapest good DSL service in Pittsburgh?
> > i'm using various sundry dialup services that <= $9.99/month
> > i'm at work from morning till evening weekdays so I don't wanna pay
> > for top level DSL service that will be sitting idle most of the time.
> > wish there was cheap pay-as-you go DSL service!
> > i heard Telerama is good (give you 2 routable static ips) but at
> > $90/month not cheap. i am in south hills area. also i'd like a free
> > DSL modem with the service since I don't have one and free
> > installation/activation.
> > 
> > zach
> > _______________________________________________
> > wplug mailing list
> > wplug at wplug.org
> > http://www.wplug.org/mailman/listinfo/wplug
> > 
> 
> _______________________________________________
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