25 Oct
2015
25 Oct
'15
2:03 p.m.
On 10/25/2015 01:36 PM, Fred Cisin wrote:
3 years ago, when I stayed at my mother's house
taking care of her,
it took me a month to find out that she did not have unlimited local
calling! Adding DSL on the phone account reduced the phone bill a
lot.
That house is now mine. AT&T DSL here sucks.
I'm finally (after years of 1.5M DSL service) going to get some decent
speeds--or so I'm told. When the Qwest wanted to expand service in my
neighborhood, they asked to purchase a bit of my land (I didn't even
know it was mine) for a "temple of boxes". I said okay, as long as DSL
would be offered. Qwest was a good as their word--this was in 2004.
Before that, it was POTS.
All of the sudden, late last spring, contractor trucks showed up and
started stringing fiber and 200 pair copper on the poles here (current
service is buried, not on poles). They've spent much of the summer,
stringing cable and punching wires at the terminal. I've been told that
I'll be receiving 20Mbps service and a new modem by the 11th of next
month. My monthly fees won't change.
So why is CenturyLink doing this? Is it a matter of improving service?
From the techs working at the temple, it turns out that it's nothing
like that. It seems that all that buried cable is slowly migrating down
the hillside to the extent that it's going to need replacement. That's
miles of copper--and probably not cheap (I got to see what an 1800 pair
cable looks like).
So fiber feeds the temple and the 200 pair copper is for folks down the
road (about 2.5 miles).
So maybe, if the weather be good, I'll be getting some worthwhile DSL
service before Thanksgiving. That would be nice.
--Chuck