Bah I just got a call, I'm not getting it till the 18th BAH BAH BAH! And I called 3 days ago to order... thats a 2 week time to get it turned on... pretty bad.
Keep in mind that there's something like a 10%-15% overhead (13% is what dslreports says in the FAQ) for DSL. So while your sync might be 6mbit if you have good lines, your actual throughput would probably be in the low to mid 5+mbit.Originally posted by: kindest
anyone getting the full 6mbit/608 with a SpeedStream 5360... 060-5360-124 to be precise.
edit: also after the speed upgrade i imagine you have to reset modem but i was curious if anyone knows if SBC will auto reboot your connection after upgrade complete. Cause everyday since the upgrade i keep disconnecting/reconnecting hoping new speed comes into effect.
Originally posted by: wkabel23
If i'm 1500 ft away from the CO is this a good deal?
thanks
Call back and get someone else. I had no problem, neither did any other existing customer that I heard of, as long as they were within the 7500' limit. It took me 5-10 minutes total and that was including hold time. You just call and say you want to upgrade your DSL to that package, the expert plus one. You just got someone on the phone who didn't know what they were talking about.Originally posted by: Murph74
Would you believe I talked to SBC out of Corpus Christi, Tx yesterday, and was told I couldn't get this package being 4,000 wire feet from the C.O.?? The rep was courteous, but denied me claiming it was a offer to 'new customers only'. She's supposedly addressing it with her superiors this week-- we shall see.
Murph
Originally posted by: Dulanic
Bah I just got a call, I'm not getting it till the 18th BAH BAH BAH! And I called 3 days ago to order... thats a 2 week time to get it turned on... pretty bad.
In my experience a lot depends on how knowledgable and friendly the service guys are who they send out. In my case, I think I was very lucky. Most of the guys (there must have been 3 or 4) were friendly, energetic, pretty knowledgable and seemed to be willing to do their best to get things working for me. One guy even put in double filters. At the time, the filters were not so hot and the newer better ones hadn't arrived, so he tried putting in a second filter - basically filtering the already filtered signal. The result was very satisfactory and I still have two filters outside next to my service box where they usually put in one. From there, the wires go to a splitter that splits into DSL and voice. The DSL runs to my DSL modem and I plug my answering machine into the voice and it all works great.Originally posted by: Devistater
Originally posted by: sixt7gt350
Bah. No SBC for me.
I'm about 7500 feet from my CO, but I'm lucky to see 200k on my DSL.
They won't perform a line test and I know the wires from the road to my house leave much to be desired.
I've got one of those non-major phone companies that has been conglomerated from all the tiny, rural ones.
Bah. No SBC for me. :brokenheart:
Have you looked into doing a splitter thing? I dont know much about it, but from what I understand if you have a really crappy lines it can help a lot. Apparently it splits out the DSL onto separate phone wires in your house, so instead of doing filters, you just have a wire going straight from your telephone box to your computer/router and all the other wires stay the same since its all voice. Actually one easy way to do it would be to connect the DSL connection to the 2nd phone line wires if they aren't used, then just use those 2nd phone wires wherever your comptuer is plugged in. When I used to have dialup and 2 phone lines I just got this $5 radio shack phone jack and wired the 2nd line to one side of it and the 1st line to other side. So devices that only expected 1 line could use either one depending on where I plugged. BTW, I dont know hardly anything about splitters so I could be blowing hot air, but its worth checking into because I do know that people with really crappy lines can get decent improvements.
Originally posted by: Devistater
Originally posted by: Muse
Thanks. I guess you're right - I don't pay for email. I think maybe at one point they broke out the DSL into connectivity+email. The $50/month I'm paying for DSL is maybe a total package now, not DSL + the ISP functionality = email accounts, webspace, extra email accounts and whatever else is included.
You're absolutely right - I DO have a static IP. It's actually something that's nice to have. I'm not sure I need it, but it does make life easier for me with my LAN and possibly with my job, since I'm connecting to my client's network with a secure VPN. I wonder if SBC they'll let me keep my static IP. That's one of the main reasons I didn't try for one of their cheaper/maybe-better plans until now, because I was afraid they'd make me give up my static IP. I guess there's no harm in asking. I don't know the why's a wherefores (at least on a solid basis) of why I'd want to retain my static IP. I think there are advantages, but I'm hazy on what they are.
One thing I was thinking of doing was to have a different ISP but retain DSL as supplied by SBC. There's a local outfit called sonic.net that the technically savvy and advanced people very much prefer. They have very good, very personal support and service and their newsgroups are miles ahead of what SBC provides. I think it's $20/month, though. I figured that it would cost me an extra $10/month than SBC (that my SBC, then Pacbell) charges would be reduced by $10 since I didn't do email with them. I called Sonic.net, but they told me that I would be on dialup for a two week period while the transition was being made. I don't know why, but they said it was unavoidable. That's one of the reasons I never made the change. That was 2-3 years ago. I don't know if they are still as good. 2-3 years is a long time in the telecommunications/ISP arena. Probably the best place for ME to research that is the ba.internet newsgroup.
Could I use a Costco prepaid phone card to pay for my connectivity charges when I fax my timesheet? I should be thinking beyond my currently cozy situation where I use my employer paid cell phone, because that will evaporate one day, maybe sooner than later. I don't know Jack about phone cards.
Edit: I found a thread of interest here at ba.internet, titled Sweet dsl offer from Sonic.net:6meg for $45!
I'll start with fax question first. Yes, it should work fine to use your phone card to fax. If you own your own fax machine you can do one of several things. One: Program in all the numbers into the fax, this solution is unlikely since most faxes and stuff dont support 20 or 30 numbers or whatever it would take. Two: Dial manually with your telephone and when the answering fax picks up and starts beeping, press START button on YOUR fax to start it. Most faxes have this ability to start the fax receive or send when you hit a button, even if you dont dial with them. You may have to play with it, like after you hear the beeping tell it to dial 5 or something then start. It will hit a 5 which wont affect anything since you are already connected then listen for the next beep to connect and fax. Make sure you hang up your phone that you used to dial when it starts connecting, otherwise you will introduce noise into the fax.
As for sonic, and dslextreme yeah those are alternatives and some people have gone with them. If they sound good to you (and from what I remember they offer static IP with the package) look into it. There's a TON of posts about them on the dslreports forums, even under the SBC one where people ask about this very thing, should I switch to them from SBC. Follow my links and explore and you will find them. From what I recall the current prices from sonic/dslextreme are about the same $45 for a 6mbit connection.
Now as for static IP issues. You say something about VPN, are you connecting to someone else who has VPN, or are you doing VPN at your house and connecting from a laptop outside your house and dialing in or whatever? In otherwords are you HOSTING vpn, or just connecting to someone elses. If you are connecting to someone elses, static or dynamic IP makes no differance. Your LAN wont be affected much, you can keep static internal IP's on your LAN if you want, or if you use DHCP you can keep using that, and let your router handle the IP assigned by SBC for internet use. Basically the main times you want a static IP are when you are hosting/serving something. Hosting a website, hosting email services, hosting VPN, hosting FTP site, etc. For almost anything else there's no differance. And even if you DO host there's often ways to work around it, although sometimes they aren't the best.
Example: I occasionally run a FTP server if I want to upload files that I'm working on from a remote location back to my home. Whenever I start the FTP server, I have to check and see what IP SBC has given me and configure it to use that one. If my IP changes, I have to reconfig. Its not a big deal for me since I dont do it that often. If I wanted to I could get one of those dynamicdns type things that you could type a name instead of a number in and it finds your current IP. They cost very little in general to do that. Like (I'm making this up) if I paid www.customdynamicdns.com $10 then I could use for my FTP address devistater.customdynamicdns.com and it would goto my current dynamic IP.
Whereas if I have static I'd always know my IP address, so dont need to ever change things.
Any other questions?
Originally posted by: dirtrat
So, I ordered on the 2nd and called at 08:00 AM and still nothing! Hoping for tomorrow, thats the DD date.
Sonic.net also hangs out in the ba.internet newsgroup and has done so for years - same guy, Dane Jasper.Originally posted by: Anonemous
if you want static IPs plans check out sonic.net (as noted in my other thread, posts above) or dslextreme. Sonic.net is 45$ for the first year then 70$ afterwards they offer 8 static ips, newsgroups, and a very good support staff from what I see on dslreports.com (they don't have a forum, I think they hang out in the SBC-Pacbell and nevada forum). DSLextreme is 60$ for the life of the phone line, they offer 1 static IP, newsgroups, and a very good support staff (they have their own forums on DSLreports.com).
Both are good. Dslextreme covers alot of southern CA and some northern CA while Sonic.net covers Northern CA.
Originally posted by: Anonemous
hmmm now I wonder if I should order 2 x6Mbps lines... Would it be simple to mux them if you just use 2 nics and bridge them using winxp?