[kwlug-disc] YAK Internet + Home Phone deal for Kitchener

[unsolicited]

Khalid Baheyeldin wrote, On 04/25/2010 8:59 PM:
> Any map or tool to tell if one is close enough to the CO?
> (Other than the tool that they use internally over the phone)?

Khalid, there's absolutely no way to know without putting something on 
the line.

I'm close enough to the CO (Glenridge), geographically, but the wires 
are just useless. When Bell went from 1Mbps to 3, I could never get 
the service increase. Was on Golden (now Execulink) for years - when I 
pursued the line quality issues with Golden, they were very helpful, 
but had to get Bell involved. Whom promptly dropped what little speed 
I was getting, in half. With that, I dropped Bell (sorry Golden), I'd 
had enough of Bell's nonsense. Even Golden understood the reason for 
the loss of business, and in fact all but suggested that it was the 
only thing I could do.

The only way to get anything fixed would have been to actually place 
an order, which _might_ kick in a visit to get an actual distance 
check. But if the distance was to check out, and I wanted dry loop or 
something, because the order got placed to get the line length 
determined, you're now stuck with the service (for some amount of time).

And that's presuming the line removal caused a DSLAM (?) 
disconnection, and the new DSL order triggering a reconnection to a 
closer / higher quality / different DSLAM. Since there was absolutely 
no guarantee I wouldn't just be reconnected where I was, I just said 
forget it.

No guarantees of nuthin, no assurances up front of quality.

Faugh.

When I move, and probably for you right now Khalid, it's probably 
worth the service charge for someone to come out and get the hard 
distance numbers. You'd be able to rule in/out DSL service then and there.

 From everything I've seen, particularly in this group, you want DSL, 
if you can get it. If you don't mind only 5 Mbps. There are too many 
providers out there better than Bell, let alone Rogers. Even Bell 
DSLAMmed filtering is apparently only going to affect you over the 
supper hour, unlike the 24x7 of Rogers. And you may get SMTP back - 
worth it all by itself.