Darin Ames wrote with his experience getting a DSL connection for his Mac in Boston (384K/384K for $59/month!) Flashcom's web site pricing was much higher, I don't know how Darin obtained that rate. Darin's story is followed by another reader's experience (added 3/31/99).
"
Hey Mike,
I just had my Flashcom service installed today. What almost turned into
a fiasco was saved by some bottom of the ninth 'heroics.'
I originally weighed BA against Flashcom, and while BA offered better
rates on the higher bandwidths, I could not ignore several things:
•BA's [less than stellar] reputation when dealing with Mac customers,
•Their high price for the actual DSL modem.
•The fact that they won't offer it in my area for another few months. :)
Flashcom, on the other hand, not only offers service in my city, but
was, and I quote Vito Corleone, "making an offer I couldn't refuse."
384/384, $99 installation, FREE modem and $59 per month. Needless to
say, I signed up. Here's where things got a bit wonky.
I spoke to the director of sales, (name withheld) who assured me that
the best course of action was for me to call BA and have a new line
installed before the Flashcom partner firm, in this case, Covad, came to
do the DSL install. In an effort to make certain I understood him, I
asked again what he suggested, and he said to just call BA and order a
new line, number and all. I did just that, paying the BA tech to snake
the wiring through my apartment to my den of depravity.
Two weeks later, ANOTHER BA guy shows up, this time sent from Covad, to
make sure everything was there for them. Upon seeing that I had ordered
a new line with a number, and had paid to have the wiring done at BA's
hourly rates, he told me that none of this was necessary. All that was
needed was access to a set of twisted pair wires for them to put the DSL
signal on. Several calls to Flashcom techs supported this.
Nevertheless, before canceling the service to this line, I decided to
wait until the DSL was hooked up and running.
The Covad guy showed up today. At first he seemed confident that the
installation would be a breeze. That is, until, he checked out the new
line Flashcom had told me to order. It turns out that because it was a
standard line with a dial tone, he could not get his DSL signal on it.
He checked out the junction box on my floor, and informed me that I
would not be getting DSL today. He went on to say that he would initiate
the necessary calls to get me service, but recommended that I call
Flashcom and let it be known that I was none too pleased. I did that and
they promised to get another tech out to my place soon, telling me they
would call back with an exact date.
While waiting, Mike Clark, the Covad
tech, called from his cell phone to inform me he was on his way back,
citing that he didn't feel that he had done all that could've been done
and wanted to check things out a bit more. He went to the basement of my
building and found the Covad DSL signal, and managed to get it up to my
floor, transferring it to the new line I had ordered. During this,
Flashcom called to ask if a Covad tech was here and I informed that
indeed there was and thanked them for doing their part. It turns out
that while he was on his way back, Mike's dispatch called him to say
that Flashcom had placed a priority call into them, insisting that the
DSL signal had been verified to be in my building, and that I get
service today. Within 30 minutes, I was screaming along at 384.
I must commend both Flashcom and Covad for doing the right thing and doing it
fast. Special thanks must go out to Covad's Mike Clark for being a great
guy who, on his own initiative, took it upon himself to make it happen.
It should be noted that while I've been told that BA DSL requires the
computer's MAC address, requiring you to call them with the address of a
new machine should you desire or need to use the DSL on it, Flashcom did
not. Mike told me that should I ever desire to do so, all I need do is
import the new TCP/IP file to another Mac.
Now to the fun stuff. As a test, last night I DL'ed the 10.5MB Star Wars
trailer from Apple. This was at about 2 am, so there wasn't too much
stress on the servers. Total DL time (46000 connection) =1hr.10 minutes.
Today, at peak usage time, about 3 pm, I DL'ed the same file using the
DSL. Total time = 8 minutes. I unreservedly recommend Flashcom to anyone
considering DSL. Just don't make the mistake I made; don't try and
'help.' Just order the service and stand back. The local DSL "sister"
firm working with Flashcom will make sure they have whatever signal path
they need to get you service.
To say it's fun is an understatement of immense proportions. I cannot
stop surfing. I'm wasting ten times as much time in a fraction of the
time it used to take. What's better than that?
Darin Ames
darinames@crooner.com
www.crooner.com
"
I've never heard of DSL service that low (384/384 for $59/month). I pray it arrives
in central Virginia soon. :-)
"
Hi Mike,
After reading Darin Ames' report on his low cost ADSL for his mac, I
can't help to share my positive experience with my new Pacific bell DSL line here in San Francisco Bay Area in California.
The cost for 1.5M/128K single static IP is $39 per month, plus $10 for the ISP if you go with PacBell's own ISP. Installation and the modem are $198. As you can see, not too bad.
The upload speed is a fix 128Kb/s while the download speed is GUARANTEED at a minimum of 384Kb/s. For most people, you'll go as far as 1.5Mb/s, as it is in my case (lucky me :). I think it all depends how far away you are from the switching station and the quality of your line.
I had a few hairy moments to begin with since PacBell is also
contracting to install the line and equipment; in my case, on
installation day, PacBell 'forgot' to activate my account and I was
stranded during the week-end with a very functional DSL line but no IP setup for me :( I also suffered the long delays on the technical support line, talking to many different people having no clue how to setup my
line. Anyway, i finally caught a nice guy who knew what he was talking about and my IP was setup properly and bingo I'm surfing at dazzling
speeds ;)
Well it's a brand new service too, so it's bound to happen to have some early quirks. I hear also they are overwhelmed with requests for service, as DSL is becoming VERY popular in this area where the cable companies are late to deploy cable modem services (bleh, cable, with
it's shared network bandwidth ;) And the best part is that they support FULLY the Mac. Moreover, they don't require your Ethernet hardware address. You can use any computer you want.
I can't stress the comfort of having this 'always ON' internet access. And after years of 28.8K to 56K modems, it's just amazing to download files at more than 150KBytes/s!
Cheers,
Patrick Debaumarche
"
