Originally posted to speakeasy.net.
I’ve just been through two experiences with the Speakeasy/Verizon
interface in the Boston area, and find the results disquieting.
What I was hoping to accomplish was to get Speakeasy naked DSL,
transfer my land line phone number to my cell phone, and stop paying
Verizon for the POTS that I don’t use very much, which breaks for
several days every year or two.
I called to order the naked DSL, and was told there was no problem; it
would take two install appointments and $6 more per month and a $99
installation fee. So I signed up, and COVAD came and installed a
line, and Speakeasy sent me a new modem.
The log for the install reflected that the line had been provisioned,
but there was a problem with the voltage.
After I pinged Speakeasy about the problem a week later, they called back
and said they were cancelling the order, because it seemed that my CO
didn’t have the right equipment to provide naked DSL.
Meanwhile, my current DSL line broke, and I was using dialup for over
a week. The details about this outage are at this
entry.
For this purpose, note that during the DSL outage I was using the Verizon POTS
line for several hours a day for dialup access to the internet.
So this means that not only can I not cancel the POTS line completely,
I’m nervous about even going to the minimal charge (3-4 times the
$6 that the naked DSL would have cost, had I been able to get it).
How do other people deal with this? I know there are ways to use a
cell phone as a modem for internet access; is there one that works
particularly well at a cheap price point in the Boston area? My
current service is T-Mobile with a pretty generic Motorolla phone, but
if I were saving money per month over my current Verizon + T-mobile
service I could afford to buy a better phone or change cell phone
service.
Is there any possible way to reverse the decision about the naked DSL?
It seems like a lot of all these problems may be Verizon’s business
plan to sell their own DSL — if someone threatened to expose this
(they’d need better cooperation from Speakeasy than I’ve been
getting), could the CO equipment suddenly become adequate?
It looks like the only widely-used broadband access in Boston that
doesn’t depend on Verizon is Comcast cable broadband. If you don’t
also pay for cable TV, this costs roughly what speakeasy DSL does for
less service (I actually use the ability to run servers and have a
static IP). But does anyone have Covad plus cellphone working with a
LINUX system for a noticeably lower price than I’m currently paying
for Verizon + t-mobile + speakeasy?
LayMusic.org 