Re: [tlug] "Linux Friendly" ADSL Providors

["Ulrich Plate" <plate@example.com>]

Graeme Jensen wrote:

> Can anyone recommend a good cheap and reliable ADSL Providor.  I live in
> Kanie, near Nagoya and currently use AT&T Flets ISDN.  I've heard distance
> from the Internet providor, or is it the telco?? affects the connection
> speed.  Should I (can I ) buy a modem or must they be rented?  Is there
> anything else I should find out or ask the providors about??

Distance from the central office (the NTT switch) is almost solely
responsible for the performance you'll get out of the line. Unfortunately,
this information is one of the best-kept secrets with NTT, and it took me
weeks to find out that I'm sitting 2.8 km from the next DSLAM - only after I
experienced severe trouble with the line would they sort of tell me through
gritted teeth that maybe that's why the service quality has recently dropped
to zilch. Mind you, this distance isn't really a technical problem, and I
had the full 1.5 Mbit/s in the beginning, but since a month or two, I hardly
get a connection at all, and when I do, it's somewhere around 250 to 400
Kbit/s maximum. I suspect it's either a crow eating the insulation of my
copper wire, or a severe overload of customers on the way to the DSLAM.

Long story short, it's sort of important to know how far you are from the
central office (cable length, of course, not bird's flight), mainly for one
reason: Speed drops faster on an 8 Mbit/s line than a 1.5 Mbit/s line. It is
absolutely possible that you end up with less speed for more money, so if
you are in doubt, don't go for the 8 Mbit/s plan.

NTT should have national coverage by now, maybe there are other DSL
providers in your area (Yahoo! BB, ACCA, DION, they really should all be
there). I wouldn't buy (or rent) a simple modem. I'm not saying it will not
work, but I'd expect a router to be more flexible, especially since they all
have a web interface and you can configure these things via a browser, no
need to install pesky drivers and stuff. Either buy one or rent it from the
DSL provider slash ISP, whoever makes the best offer, I suppose.

Would be cool if you found an ISP that hands out fixed IPs, but I haven't
heard of anyone doing that for individual customers...

Good luck
Ulrich Plate