Re: OT: QWest experiences???

Well I was thinking of going with QWest.net deal since they are only
$9.99 and I don't need all the extra features (e-mail, webspace, ...)
all I need is a static IP and I'm ready to go.  Only problem I have so
far is that the downtime will be at least a week to switch and the fact
that I need to purchase a new modem.


On Tue, 2005-04-19 at 06:23 -0700, Jared B. Reimer wrote:
> At 11:31 PM -0700 4/18/05, Steve Herber wrote:
> >What would the ISP charges be, from oz.net, to support this new high-speed
> >Qwest product?  I have been a very satisfied 256/256 Qwest/oz.net DSL
> >customer for ages and have been considering a speed upgrade.  This sound
> >like a real winner If the total price is not too high.
> 
> 
> I think most independent ISPs charge about the same for access these 
> days, which is to say around $20, exclusive of the DSL loop itself. 
> (Pricing is typically on the ISP's website, e.g. www.oz.net in our 
> case.  We don't charge more for the 1.5Mbps product; I don't think 
> most others do, either.)  Typically, the big variables in pricing are 
> (1) quality of customer service and (2) quality of network. 
> Speakeasy, for example, has built a great business by emphasizing 
> those two points and charging a reasonable premium for it.
> 
>  From my point of view, one key reason to avoid the Qwest+MSN combo 
> meal is that they take ownership of your DSL line, making it 
> impossible to switch ISPs without physically disconnecting the DSL 
> circuit and ordering a new one.  This process can take days, and 
> reportedly up to two weeks, during which time you are without access. 
> By contrast, if you use an independent ISP and are not happy with the 
> service, you can typically call Qwest and switch service providers 
> with only a trivial amount of downtime as they swing your PVC to a 
> different ISP.
> 
> Someone recently remarked that 'ATM cells are ATM cells' and implied 
> that the ISP portion of the service isn't really relevant.  I need to 
> clarify this point, as it is not as simple as it may appear.  First 
> of all, the ISP has to choose how much bandwidth to provision to the 
> downstream user on the ATM side.  It is not a flat rate service - 
> ISPs are given the option (by Qwest) to buy as much or as little as 
> we'd like, in 3 Mbps increments.  Likewise, the ISP you use has a 
> choice of upstream transit providers, some of which are great and 
> some of which are less than great.  Again, they have to make a 
> business decision as to which transit providers they use, and how 
> much they oversubscribe that bandwidth, as well.
> 
> Frankly, those two issues alone have as much or more to do with the 
> real-world performance you'll see as the speed your DSL modem 
> connects to the DSLAM at -- if the ISP is massively oversubscribed on 
> either side of the network, you may not be able to get anywhere near 
> the speeds you are expecting.  Other ISP-related issues such as DNS 
> server performance and local content caching (e.g. Akamai) can also 
> make a big difference in terms of your actual experience.
> 
> Consider the cable modem scenario, where the network is massively 
> oversubscribed, the ISP has zero incentive to improve it (because 
> there is no meaningful competition in many of those markets), and the 
> connection itself is shared amongst hundreds of users, any one of 
> whom can effectively monopolize it if they behave badly.  This is why 
> the advertising by Comcast and others is so terribly misleading - 
> they imply that DSL is slower, but fail to footnote the fact that the 
> maximum possible speeds they are promoting are not ones you will 
> receive at the times you want them most.
> 
> -- Jared
> 

_______________________________________________
Talk mailing list
[email protected]
http://seattlewireless.net/mailman/listinfo/talk