My household signed on to Telocity last summer. Their gateway modem is really cool and amazingly smart. It has an elaborate self-test with comprehensive diagnostics and a good built-in web server/interface. It even places a telephone call to their tech support line if it has problems it can't deal with.
As far as connectivity, it seems like we went through a month or two of occasional dropped connections. The conclusion eventually reached was that the periodic and automatic line-tests that SWB pings out were crashing the modem, requiring a power-cycle. While this was irritating, it was trivial to power-cycle the thing. I complained to their tech-support that they should put a hard-reset button on their units, but shortly after that the problems stopped. I don't know if the thing downloaded new firmware for itself or if the SWB pings got more benign, but at the time, I was hearing about problems from other folks about any non-SWB DSL ISP losing connections after line-tests. The biggest problem Telocity seems to have is their size and bureaucratic obfuscation their own inner workings. It seems like most DirecTV employees don't even know what Telocity is/was, and it is nearly impossible to deal with any billing or accounting issues. They're certainly nice enough and eventually get the job done, but you may have to talk to five different people in order to switch the account from one roommates name to another. They also seem content to just charge my credit card once a month and not bother sending me a bill at all. On 19 Mar 2002, Weston Sewell wrote: >I responded to Jeffrey, but I'd like to know what other people >think/have experienced (as I'm sure Jeffrey would too). I've had >DirectTV DSL (used to be Telocity) for about 5 months now. You get a >static IP, no hassle about using *nix (even a *nix section in the >install manual), and you can run whatever services you want (web, mail, >etc). I've not had much trouble in all 5 months except for about a week >of on/off downtime (along with my phone being dead) related to SWBs >inability to do anything right. I've had no problems with DirectTV >service itself. A friend has had quite a bit of problems with his >(again it's SWB's sucky service) and almost went back to RoadRunner just >as it started working properly again. Has anyone else tried/heard of >this service. For 4 months I was convinced it was THE broadband >connection to have, but that week of downtime reminded me how dependent >I am on SWBell. Comments? Concerns? Reactions? Thanx. > >weston > >On Tue, 2002-03-19 at 10:57, Doc wrote: >> On Tue, 19 Mar 2002, Jeffrey Forman wrote: >> >> > I'm in the search for a high-speed ISP in Austin for the summer >> > 2002-spring 2003, but don't know which one makes the most sense, won't >> > empty out my pockets, and won't go down every 24 hours. >> >> Sounds like TW RoadRunner. On a dynamic-IP account, I've had the same >> IP for nearly a year. It's a month-to-month account, so no contractual >> obligation, straight DHCP, and it's available immediately, everywhere. >> I have 2 friends who recently went to DSL from cable and both say, >> surprisingly, that cable was more reliable. >> RoadRunner is the single most aggravating provider of ANYTHING I've >> ever dealt with. They act stupid, they ARE stupid, they lie, they >> violate their own contracts, and gods dammit, they are the best in >> Austin. The connection is fast and as close to 24/365 as you'll get, >> repairs are prompt, and it's relatively cheap. >> >> Doc >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Sigfree mailing list >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> http://www.utacm.org/mailman/listinfo/sigfree >> > > > > >_______________________________________________ >Siglinux mailing list >[EMAIL PROTECTED] >http://www.utacm.org/mailman/listinfo/siglinux > -- Eric Irrgang - UT ITS Unix Consulting - 475-9342 _______________________________________________ Siglinux mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.utacm.org/mailman/listinfo/siglinux
