It has made me too jittery to think straight. This dropping-DSL, which has been down for days on end, coming up for 30 minutes or an hour a day, has made me link-light crazy, watching the router nervously for the fatal wink-out of the WAN link indicator. I’m getting an ulcer.
Current connection condition as follows (as obtained from DSL reports)
…to New Jersey:
** Speed 1294(down)/442(up) kbps **
(At least 25 times faster than a 56k modem)
Logging result
Finish.
…to San Jose:
** Speed 274(down)/436(up) kbps **
(At least 5 times faster than a 56k modem)
Logging result
Finish.
..to Los Angeles:
** Speed 545(down)/438(up) kbps **
(At least 10 times faster than a 56k modem)
Logging result
Finish.
I don’t know what is up with the San Jose test results — the upload is faster than the download. But if it is connected at all lately, all I can say is ‘tsawright.
The DSL offerings out there are pretty awful. WorldCom, despite their website propaganda, can’t do anything for a Rhythms customer ‘cept sell’em a new line. No assumption of ‘customer care’ going on there. Or maybe it is just an unscrupulous sales staff trying to maximize commissions — the American way. They want to discard the present connection, hardware and all, and have Covad install everything new. Such an encouragingly inefficient business practice for lean times — maximize cash flow without regard for the rest.
I’m in a bad mood.
They want $150 per month for a 128kbps line (Synchronous DSL — 128k both ways). This price means nothing to me since I have not spent a cent on my present line. But the service I signed up for was ADSL (Asynchronous) which for most of its life has provided me with 1.5Mbps downstream and 300+ kbps upstream. The price for that was $49.95 a month. Hmmm. I think there is some shopping to be done here — or maybe some strong words to be shared with WorldCom, like… well, I don’t know exactly what they are yet. But I’ll let you know.