FastAccess or No Access?
Written: Oct 14 '99
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Pros: very fast internet access, "always on" connection
Cons: sometimes drops connection for days at a time, IP address assigned dynamically
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| niel's Full Review: BellSouth FastAccess ADSL |
I signed up for BellSouth's FastAccess ADSL service as soon as it was available in my neighborhood. A technician came out to install it about three to four weeks after my first call. As an early adopter, I was prepared for a "bleeding edge" experience, and I got one.
To get set up for ADSL, you pay $300; $100 of that is the installation fee, and the remaining $200 is for Customer Premises Equipment (CPE in telco jargon). The CPE consists of some sort of splitter that goes in the wall -- I never got a good answer for what this does technically -- the ADSL modem, and an ethernet card. Be careful about the ethernet card; my Macintosh has built-in ethernet, so the installer didn't give me one. Some customers -- the ones that don't already have ethernet -- get more for their money. I also had to teach the installer how to install on my Mac, as he had been trained on PC's. I have no idea what they would have said to OS/2, Linux, or BeOS; the best bet would probably be to boot to Windows and switch to your prefered OS after the installer has gone. You also need a regular modem to dial in and set up your billing information; I don't know what they would do if I had a computer with no modem.
The performance is phenomenal, when it works. I can download a 10 MB QuickTime movie trailer and start playing it immediately; it finishes downloading before it finishes playing. I can download an entire CD's worth of MP3's in about 20 minutes. Uploads are just as fast, and there has been no degradation in service as (presumably) more of my neighbors have started signing up.
As for when it doesn't work: in the first few months, I had complete outages at least once a week, for a period of about 24 to 36 hours at a time. There was never any explanation from BellSouth as to why service was out. Since then, service has been much more stable, but there are still occasional outages. The BellSouth.net ADSL support newsgroups are full of complaints about the uneven service from some extremely annoyed customers. I never felt the service was quite that awful.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 300 setup, $59.95/month ($49.95 with separate BellSouth.net account)
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Epinions.com ID:
niel
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Member: Niel Bornstein
Location: Marietta, GA
Reviews written: 8
Trusted by: 4 members
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