> thread... Do you guys have any suggestions for a good/cheap DSL provider in
> Scotch Plains area?

I live in Scotch Plains (Westfield Ave, stop by sometime!) and I am
juuuust far enough away from the Central Office to be able to get xDSL
service.  Yes, I could get IDSL, but it is the same speed as ISDN which
I already have.

Anyway, there are really 3 xDSL providers in NJ but they are set up to
let people re-sell their services and look like a big DSL provider.  For
example, Superlink offers DSL service, but they're really just
re-selling Covad service.  Bell Atlantic owns the wires between the
central office and your house, so all of this depends on BA's
willingness to play fair.  So, really you are using Superlink with
resells Covad which is held hostage to Bell Atlantic.

Covad is technically the best run DSL service in the biz.  However Bell
Atlantic knows this so if anything breaks on the Bell Atlantic end of
things, they drag their feed fixing it to make Covad look bad.

Red or Frontier (I don't recall their name) is the next best DSL
service. You have the same problems as Covad with respect to sabatage
from Bell Atlantic.

Bell Atlantic provides DSL.  The benefit there is that you get no finger
pointing.  Well, only sort of.  They are so incompentent that you'll
find that even though all three "layers" are at the same company, it's
still crappy service.  I call it Covad's revenge.


Bell Atlantic will give you higher speed connections if you are willing
to pay for them, but their uplink speed is limited and BA's internet
connection is pretty overloaded.  Therefore you pay extra for a fast
pipe to a slow internet connection.


whatexit.org (a host that I run) is now at the other end of a Speakeasy
SDSL connection.  SDSL is the same bandwidth in both directions, which
is more appropriate for servers.  HDSL is same bandwidth and
full-duplex... which is even more appropriate for servers but I haven't
found anyone that offers HDSL yet.

--tal
Tue Jul 18 13:41:39 EDT 2000