Verizon - How to they stay in business?

[SUBMAN1]

I ordered my DSL to be hooked up on the 31st of October back on the 15th of October. and now the are estimating that I will get it by November 14th??? Are they nuts? A full month to hook up my DSL? How can they stay in business???

-S

[SmithN23]

I'd say cancel the order and get a cable modem, they are a lot faster, with DSL the farther away you are from one of their repeating staions the slower the signal will be, and if a lot of people have DSL in your neigborhood it will also be slower. With cable it is always the same speed.

[August]

Originally Posted by SmithN23

I'd say cancel the order and get a cable modem, they are a lot faster, with DSL the farther away you are from one of their repeating staions the slower the signal will be, and if a lot of people have DSL in your neigborhood it will also be slower. With cable it is always the same speed.

Actually you have that reversed. DSL is a separate link, broadband is shared.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by SmithN23

With cable it is always the same speed.

I was told just the opposite; it's with cable that the speed goes down proportionally with each user on the local net. If everybody in your neighborhood is online at the same time you will suffer an amazing loss.

That said, I'd still go with cable.

[SUBMAN1]

Yeah - I can live with their speed of 3 mbps/768 k.

You have it backwards by the way - advatages of DSL = guaranteed bandwidth + lower latency (better for online games) than cable. Cable = faster, but it is a shared pipe. Friend of mine is supposed to get 8 mbps on his cable with bursts to 12 mbit per sec, but he tested it last weekend and it is so saturated that he was posting 1.2 mbps!!!

Doesn't matter anyway, since even when it is running at top speed, I still get lower latency which gives me better ping times by at least 10 ms + regardless that my speed is half of his. I have the same up though and I have a guaranteed 768k up at all times.

-S

[SmithN23]

my mistake. I still like cable better though, just a personal preference.

[sonar732]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

I ordered my DSL to be hooked up on the 31st of October back on the 15th of October. and now the are estimating that I will get it by November 14th??? Are they nuts? A full month to hook up my DSL? How can they stay in business???

-S

Unless your lines are so bad that they have to make them DSL capatable, that shouldn't be the case. If your lines are fine, it's a matter of flippin' a switch almost. Did they give you the 10/15/2006 date as a guarentee? I'd cry wolf and complain with email and FCC.

[SmithN23]

to add one thing, I'd milk this for all its worth, call Verizon and tell them that if they do not do something for you and get the line set up tomorrow, you will take you business elsewhere. All of the internet companies are all competing for customers and they will usually will give you an incentive to get your business.

[August]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

Yeah - I can live with their speed of 3 mbps/768 k.

You have it backwards by the way - advatages of DSL = guaranteed bandwidth + lower latency (better for online games) than cable. Cable = faster, but it is a shared pipe. Friend of mine is supposed to get 8 mbps on his cable with bursts to 12 mbit per sec, but he tested it last weekend and it is so saturated that he was posting 1.2 mbps!!!

Doesn't matter anyway, since even when it is running at top speed, I still get lower latency which gives me better ping times by at least 10 ms + regardless that my speed is half of his. I have the same up though and I have a guaranteed 768k up at all times.

-S

Yeah weekends on broadband can be slow, that and you can usually tell by the slowdown in the afternoon when the kiddies get home from school and all log on nearly at once.

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by August

Yeah weekends on broadband can be slow, that and you can usually tell by the slowdown in the afternoon when the kiddies get home from school and all log on nearly at once.

Yep - that what my friend thinks too - all the kids get home and clog the pipe! I'll stick with my DSL.

-S

[scandium]

Neither is inherently faster or better than the other. It just depends on what's offered and where you live. Generally, all else being equal, DSL is going to be better if you live in a dense residential area since cable tends to get saturated when there are a lot of people all hooked up to the same headend whereas w/ DSL your speed is determined by your proximity to the switch and how good of a connection you have to it, since your bandwidth is fixed (unlike cable which is shared from the headend) then if you're relatively close and/or have a lot of fiber between you and it then you're set.

Basically if you live in an apartment complex, as I do, your cable connection's gonna suck. And the speed they advertise is not a guaranteed speed, its a "best possible" case speed... ie you might have a 5 Mbit connection to the tap outside your house, but if the headend its connected to is saturated then you'll probably never see anywhere close to it ... when I did the internet tech support side of customer service that was one of the most annoying calls to deal with since its very hard to skirt around the fact that, "yes Mr Customer you are paying for a 5 Mbit connection, but those 1 Mbit speeds you are seeing, on a good day, are about par for the course so get used to it because there actually is no problem with your service and the only solution is to either switch to something else or move". I really don't miss those days.

BTW Subman, 30 days for DSL installed is nuts... my guess is that they don't actually have the equipment in place to provide it yet and are simply giving you their best guess as to when they will. Either that or the rep doesn't have any availability or an ETA and is simply blowing smoke out of his @ss (and you'd be surprised how often that happens.. if he can't give yuo a date & time then he has bnly an ETA or he's BS'ing you).