[COLUG] Dry Loop DSL

[richard hornsby]

On Sun, Jul 6, 2008 at 1:42 PM, Robert Grimm <robertgrimm at gmail.com> wrote:
> This is related to the recent AT&T discussion, but I want to focus on DSL. I
> have no interest in TV. I plan on getting a cell phone through them when my
> Sprint contract expires in December, but for now, I'm only interested in dry
> loop DSL. That means DSL with no active voice line.
>
> I have Road Runner through Insight. I'm the last house on the node. In the
> six months I've had it, I've had to have technicians come out 4 times.
> Today, it is going in and out of periods of being nearly unusably slow. I'm
> ready to drop the service as soon as I find a reasonable replacement. I've
> been considering switching to AT&T DSL for a while now. The problem with
> that is I don't have a phone line. They offer dry loop DSL now, so I should
> be able to get service. Does anyone have any experience with AT&T dry loop?
> Could I expect to be considered a Untouchable in the AT&T caste support
> system? They claim 6Mb downstream. Is that reasonable to expect?

I have AT&T dry loop DSL.  As mentioned in the other thread, I'm
having some trouble with the inside wiring that I need to resolve.
When I plug the modem into the service box attached to the outside of
the house, I get roughly 5.5Mbps on the dslreports speed tests for a
6Mbps level service.  If you aren't getting the speed you expect, I
would try that first, because AT&T will charge you to check and/or fix
any inside wiring issues.  On the inside of my house, because of
something in the wiring, I get sub 2's.  I'm about 13,000' from the CO
(right on the very edge of any service at all), but three of the FTTN
boxes (sprouting up like orange barrels in the spring) are nearby.
I'm told I'm still at the end of the "line" or "loop" or whatever it
is they call it.

If you have a fiber node near your location, I think that acts as an
effective CO for the purposes of determining distance.  A couple of
years ago, I found a site that mapped the locations of the COs
(regardless of provider) but I don't think it showed the FTTN boxes,
and I can't find the URL besides, but it may still exist.  Kind of
surprised if someone hasn't done a googlemaps type deal of where the
boxes are.  They tend to show up in random places that must make sense
to someone else, like in front of the McDonald's near Georgesville and
Holt.

The biggest problem I had with the service (besides the inside wiring)
was during the install, that I haven't had landline service for a
couple of years, so someone "stole my pair." I'm not exactly sure what
it means, except that it has something to do with that I have no
dialtone (dry loop), so when a tech was working on someone else's
lines at some point, they took my copper pair thinking it wasn't used
(which at the time, it wasn't).  It took several days (more than a
week of missed, "missing", or canceled appointments) to have someone
out to fix it.  The first guy who was out only spent about 20 minutes
before deciding he was off the clock and someone else would have to
come out to finish the job.

There is confusion at AT&T, depending on who you talk to, about the
upstream side.  A couple of people told me regardless of my service
level I should only expect 384k, others have said it should be 768k
for 6M downstream.  The upstream is one of the biggest draws for me,
as I often use my home link as an ssh+socks5 proxy, especially when
using unsecured wireless APs.  It has been a while since I ran the
test, but as I recall it was pretty close to 650 or so.  I also
haven't been able to get a decent answer about what the difference is
between "[standard] residental DSL" and "U-Verse DSL" - they seem to
indicate in the marketing materials that there is a difference.  The
person on the phone couldn't explain it, except to say that I didn't
have a choice between the two.

-rj