DSL, what's the phone company going to charge me

[kornphlake]

I live in a rural area in an older home, I don't know if the line drop to the house is new enough to support DSL. Is there some way I can tell if the line coming into the house is DSL ready? IIRC there is a bundle of wires that come down from the telephone pole into a junction box on the side of my house, two of the wires in the bundle are connected to my phone line and 2 are connected to a line that runs to a trailer on the property. The phone company's website (SBC) says that DSL is available to my phone number but I might be responsible for unexpected setup and connection charges. At $100-$200 per hour for the necessary connection, I'd rather continue with dial-up if it meant the phone company would have to drop an additional line or updated line to the house.

So is there some way I can visually check to see if the wiring coming into my house is sufficient? I just rewired the home and ran cat5 cable to the phone jack I am using for my dial up connection and I'm comfortable doing whatever else it might take inside the house including any computer hardware or software issues, but I can't do anything about the wire coming down from the telephone pole and I'm not willing to pay some telco worker 10 times my hourly wage to complete a connection.

 

[kini62]

If the phone company says your number is DSL ready then you should not need anything other than a DSL modem. DSL runs on the old copper wire (POTS) that your current phone/modem uses.

 

[kornphlake]

so any copper wire attatched to the house will do the job? From the fine print on SBC's website:

"$150-$200 additional charge if technician install is required or desired. The equipment charge will appear on the first bill along with any corresponding and offsetting instant credits."

Why would technician install be required if all that's needed is plain old copper wire?

 

[UsandThem]

Originally posted by: kornphlake
so any copper wire attatched to the house will do the job? From the fine print on SBC's website:

"$150-$200 additional charge if technician install is required or desired. The equipment charge will appear on the first bill along with any corresponding and offsetting instant credits."

Why would technician install be required if all that's needed is plain old copper wire?

I think that means if you want them to come to your house and install your DSL modem to your computer.

 

[kini62]

UsandThem is correct. If you have a phone line into your house that SBC says qualifies (usually a distance thing) then you don't need anything installed, unless you want then to plug the moden into the wall and then plug the ethernet cable into your computer and then charge you $100 for this "install".

Also some people might have the phone company install extra phone jacks in other rooms, this would also be part of an "install".

 

[kornphlake]

I'm always a little spooked by fine print that says additional charges may be required, especially coming from phone companies. I once got dinged for over $200 in additional charges to connect a phone line to an apartment. The apartment manager assumed no responsibility, (apparently in that state it was legit,) and the phone company said the charge was customary, yet made no mention of it when I called to establish service. The same company (Qwest if you were wondering) also screwed me over on a cell phone promotion where I was supposed to be able to test out a phone for 30 days for free, if I choose to return the phone after 30 days I'd have the cost of the phone refunded, my first month's bill refunded and wouldn't be charged an early termination fee. Long story short, the phone didn't get reception at home, at school or at work so I returned it. When it came to refunding the amount for the phone and first months service, the dealer and the phone company couldn't get their stories straight, the phone company said the dealer was to issue the refund and the dealer claimed the provider was to issue the refund, the dealer went out of business about a week after I returned the phone and I lost over $100 by trying out what was supposed to be a free trial. Ever since I've been a little gun shy when dealing with phone companies.

 

[Cheesetogo]

DSL monthly charges about 50 for the fastest and around 30 for the slower stuff. (not including promos)

 

[jackschmittusa]

I have SBC DSL. The phone company is responsible for all of the wiring to the box on your house. the installation charge you mentioned is for setting up the stuff in your house. They will supply you with a self-install kit for free, or free after rebate, depending on the promo. The kit includes the modem, a cat5 cable, and some filters. I recommend not installing any of their software for the installation. Use a router even if you don't have a home network. It will do the connecting for you and offer NAT. The SBC/Yahoo installation software loads a lot of crap on the box and Yahoo sells your info to everybody and you become a spam magnet. SBC has a much better privacy policy and does not do that. Yahoo reserves the right to sell your info to its affilliates, which number in the hundreds, if not thousands. you should get an SBC email adress, and if you want a web account too, I would suggest the free one at Netscape instead of Yahoo. I have had a Netscape web email account for years and have no problem with spam there.

 

[Ausm]

I am not sure about SBC because I have Centurytel. All they did was turn it "on" and run some tests from their end and sent me a self installation modem.

Ausm

 

[NightCrawler]

Just get the self installed option when you signup online. The current prices are $19.99 for 1.5 megabits and $29.99 for 3.0 megabits.


PS: SBC is required by law to do all work outside your home for free up to the gray box. Any work done inside the house they are allowed to charge you. Since you already have rewired the house with Cat 5 then their is no need for SBC to come inside.

 

[kini62]

Wow! You guys are getting 3.0 megabits for 29.99. I pay that for 1.5 megabits

Ah, the price of paradise- I guess

 

[JimPhelpsMI]

Hi, DSL, Dedicated Service Line (not remembering exact on the SL part), is mainly only a regular line that the telephone guys have frequency compensated. Any good standard line should be OK after they compensate it. Jim

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: JimPhelpsMI
Hi, DSL, Dedicated Service Line (not remembering exact on the SL part), is mainly only a regular line that the telephone guys have frequency compensated. Any good standard line should be OK after they compensate it. Jim

I believe DSL stands for Digital Subscriber Line, at least the DSL that goes over a phone line.


Kind of weird that they'd charge you so much money just to let you pay more money as a customer (DSL + phone line, instead of just a phone line). I got another phone line installed, and the guy said that he could connect the line to the box on the outside of the house, but if he set foot inside the house, it was $90. So he connected the wire to the box and left - no charge. I did the indoor wiring part of it.

 

[w00t]

get cable
i had dsl upload speed was poor and download was ok paying 10 dollars more and no problems.

 

[sniperruff]

DSL usually has a 30-day trail right? just order through SBC or verizon and try it out. if you don't like it, you'd only be paying the shipping back to them for a month to try it out.

 

[YabbyU]

find out how far you live from their "CO" (central office?). I'm paying $50.00 for a 1.5 down but getting 768 cause a live so far from the CO. Of course no one explained this to me and they are unwilling to credit me or let me out of my contract...EARTHLINK

 

[Kaieye]

I thought that if you lived more than three miles from the telephone switching place then you would be too far for a DSL line...

 

[Greenman]

Just be sure there is a way to get your money back if it doesn't work. I had DSL for 3 months, and was near the limit on distance from the switch, it never once worked for more than three hours at a time. Most of the time it wasn't much better than 56k. That was with SBC, and took me 3 months to get them to admit it didn't work.

 

[NightCrawler]

Originally posted by: Kaieye
I thought that if you lived more than three miles from the telephone switching place then you would be too far for a DSL line...

The limit is 18,000 feet for ADSL on a good line. Noise and bad wires can reduce that though and sometimes the telco will have a limit policy like 15,000 feet.

SBC has setup a bunch of remote terminals which bring every home within 5000 feet or so, this is for ADSL2+ and/or VDSL which needs to be close to operate. It will be rolled out over the next three years.

My house is 500 feet from the Remote Terminal so I get any speed grade I want and just can't wait for ADSL2+ which will provide 25 mebagits.

 

[ribbon13]

Assuming the run to your house from the CO is good get a DSL filter and run a dedicated line to your computer.

Might want to look at this page
http://www.homephonewiring.com/index.html