I went for an offer by Verizon: Free equipment for 1 year of Verizon InfoSpeed DSL. I set up the ethenet card and my DSL modem, as well as the microfilters on all the other lines. When the appointed time come, I downloaded the other software, fired up the special Netscape 4.5 to log on…and nothing happened, but a flashing ready light from the modem. I called tech support and asked what is going on. It turned out that they were behind schedule because of the strike. Pss–a Pit worthy rant I am considering.
Anyway, I then told them of the configuration of my connection: My computer is 68 feet from the main wall jack. I have 2 long extension phone wires running from it: one to my phone, the other splitting into two for my modems, one 56K internal which I currrently use to surf, the other the Bell Atlantic external modem, connected to an Ethernet card by Ethernet cable. I am using R-11 wire for the modems and the phone, except for the wire given me by the company, that is connected to the splitter. The Verizon techie said that I may not get a signal even when activated with that config, because of the 75 feet of R-11 extension. so my questions are:
Must I get 100 feet of R-45 cable wire to insure a DSL connection, or will R-11 wire do?
If I do need R-45/Category 5 wire, where do I get the special coupler needed to connect to two R45 wires of, say 45 feet in length?
First off, the telco will blame poor performance on anything, including sunspots, plumbing pipes in your walls, ball lightning - whatever. So don’t blindly accept that any problem is even something in your house. I have woman-days of experience debugging these things with them. That having been said…
Maybe, maybe not. My DSL is running on a 60 foot extension of R-11, and I get 5.2 MBit max according to the tech from SW Bell who came out and tested it.
The couplers can be bought at CompUSA for about $10.00, or ordered online for about $3.99. Try Radio Shack - they might just have them pretty cheap.
Hi… You can definitely get the couplers at Radio Shack for very cheap. From what I hear, DSL service is spotty: meaning sometimes the service is fantastic, sometimes it sucks. I’ve heard of some people having cutouts etc. My DSL is 1.28Mbps down/384kbps up for $35. I ALWAYS get around 125KB/sec downloads, and I’ve never dropped a connection, so I’m loving my DSL. Hope you have a similar experience. Have fun!
If you go to http://www.dslreports.com they have, under the “Tools” section two speed tests you can run. I have found that these tests seem to show my speed is between 450 to 750 kbit.
But I have also done other tests such as going to Apple, Netscape, or Microsoft and downloading huge files (such as the web browsers), and just timing the download. Doing this, I once got to 1.6 Mbit average from Netscape.
I also have tried selecting 10 or so MP3’s on Napster, and calculating the average download speed. Doing this I have got as high as 1.55 Mbit at times.
I have found that for 99.99% of the sites I go to, my DSL is no longer the weak link. For example, cnn.com downloads it’s pages barely faster than a 56k modem to me - mostly the result of trying to contact all the stupid ad servers.
And that leads me to a related topic - there’s nothing like a frozen ad server to turn your 1.5 Mbit connection into a 28.8 modem…
>> And that leads me to a related topic - there’s nothing like a frozen ad server to turn your 1.5 Mbit connection into a 28.8 modem…
Well, not only ad servers but any servers. I usually connect at 48 or 49K. I rarely download huge files so I can put up with waiting even a couple of hours two or three times a year. the rest of the time, for internet browsing, email, etc, I find my connection is adequate.
When netsurfing, if things slow down I find most often it is the target server that is slow (SDMB comes to mind as prime example) and no DSL connection is going to help. You can tell easily because other sites still download fast.
Other times it is my ISP (Earthlink) that is slow (I do not know why) and then everything slows down. I guess I could try another ISP but then I risk finding it is even worse. In other words, in my case, I do not think DSL would help much.
I have several friends who wanted more speed and got DSL and I think they were sold something that they didn’t need and didn’t really resolve their problem.
capacitor
I have Verizon dsl service (before they gave away the modem). I got it under the Bell Atlantic name. Instead of putting microfilters everywhere, I put 1 at the NW1 (the 1st point you have access to. used a existing 4 pair flex (not cat 5) from the ‘unfiltered’ side to a RJ11C jack right my the computer. I probally should have run cat 5 but the other cable was in already. I have no problems with my inside wiring either on the voice or data side. I do get outages and some slowdowns but they are causes at the CO.
Also I’ve heard recomendations to open up the NW1 box and remove the device inside consisting of some capacitors and resistors as they can slow down your DSL - this is a good place to attach your dedicated DSL line.
A question…
The email address I got from Verizon is @Bellatlantic.net for the old NYNEX area and it looks like the old Bell Atlantic area got @BA.net
Do you have any or did they give you a @Verizon.something?
Yuck, I can answer that one. Get both Internet Junkbuster and Naviscope. These are, respectively, a free proxy and an internet monitor. Both have already excellent ad-blocking capabilities, and both of them can be configured to your tastes if you find certain banners that you don’t want to see. Internet Junkbuster can be used as a kid protector as well, if you configure it as such. While you’re at it, disable Javascript on your browser. Many sites use it to call ads, going around the ad blockers.
Silly me to suggest software without the web sites pointing to them.
For Internet Junkbuster go to: www.junkbusters.com. This is also a leading anti-spam, pro-privacy advocate group. Surf the site for more news.
Note that they also advocate Guidescope, a GUI version of IJ.
Good points about Guidescope: more GUI-oriented than the geekish IJ (well, I’m I geek and I find it fun to tinker with .inf files). Also, you can list the pictures/ads/banners that you previously downloaded on a single page and check out the ones you don’t want to see again. Doing that will make every user of Guidescope not see the the item checked when each surfs to that web page.
Bad: You have to go to the guidescope website, and stay there, to use it everytime. Also, being a GUI, it takes a lot more memory (about 8MB) to run it.
For Naviscope, go to: www.naviscope.com. They haven’t updated in months, so they must have perfected it to their satisfaction.
I have a pitiable, puerile, juvenile mind. It is most probable that it is only local slang, but DSL had a different meaning long before “direct subscriber line.”