Welcome to the Product Spotlight -- a continuing series of articles highlighting individual products commonly used by our members.

In The Spotlight: TekSavvy DSL Service
Previously:
• Verizon FiOS Spotlight
• HughesNet Satellite Spotlight
• Optimum Online Spotlight
• Comcast HSI Spotlight
• Clearwire Wireless Internet Spotlight
• EV-DO Showdown - Sprint Vs. Verizon
• Canadian Broadband - Cogeco Vs. Shaw
• magicJack VoIP Service

See also: US Broadband Price Comparisons

Rock solid connection, speed of 6016Kb/800Kb....What else I can ask for $29.95? Teksvvy is the best ISP ever, strongly recommended! »Review of TekSavvy Solutions Inc. by vivalite

It's no secret geeks and technophiles are a hard lot to please -- especially when it comes to their Internet service. However, once in a while an ISP does, in fact, appear to get things right. One ISP that seems to fit the bill is the Canadian provider TekSavvy Solutions, Inc. In this Product Spotlight, we'll take a look at TekSavvy's offerings and why the service gets such high grades in customer reviews here on Broadbandreports.com.

Bellsouth has changed its network around, and the change requires reconfiguration on the user end. Bellsouth customers should have received emails notifying them of the change.

Wired news is running an article on the infamous 678 error that appears in Windows XP users running DSL connections. The error is many times brought to the surface due to PPPoE version conflicts between the PPPoE version on the OS and the version on many ISP's installation disks. The article includes some debate on how to resolve the 678 demon, and has some solutions and PPPoE insight by a few names you may find familiar.

The Register tells us a tale of one man's broadband dream interrupted by Verizon DSL, PPPoE, several low level support techs, some red tape, and a Bug: "I'd made my initial call at 9:30 am. It was now 3:30 pm. Six hours I'd wasted on an otherwise pleasant Saturday, learning nothing I didn't already know and getting punished for having a modem of my own choosing." His day long nightmare could have been five minutes if he came here (or here) first.

According to this CNet Article, the idea of breaking up the Baby Bells is galvanizing rivals and critics who allege that Verizon, SBC, BellSouth, and Qwest have abused their control of the networks (see related CNet articles Here and Here ). Rivals charge the Baby Bells with dragging their heels in opening their local phone markets to competition.
With the introduction of the Hollings Bill last week (see DSLR news), the break-up idea is being more openly discussed, although the bill is unlikely to pass this year.
Meanwhile, ISPs in California are attacking SBC's plan to fix them on PPPoE saying that this stunts their ability to sell VPNs and remotely managed servers, decreasing security on the net. (See InternetWeek)..

Robert Schlabbach has 0.96 of his free PPPoE adapter on his website available!

Version 0.96, May 29th, 2001
First release with Intel Itanium 64-bit CPU support! The IA64 version is distributed in a separate archive for now.
Fixed: Some code paths in the ProtocolReceivePacket() handler returned a non-zero value, which would not return the received packet to the network adapter driver, eventually causing it to run out of packets, making unable to operate.

Robert Schlabbach will be giving windows PPPoE users a holiday gift: he expects to release 0.95 of his free PPPoE adaptor on his website at midnight December 24th, which is 6pm December 23rd eastern time!

RASPPPOE 0.95 will have a licensing incentive: free versions will continue with the current manual install method, but, Robert will be providing ISPs a "no-reboot" version for a license fee.
If you are happy with RASPPPoE then why not drop an email to your ISP asking them to investigate licensing it? easier for them, easier for you..

Since the massive switch of US West DSL ISP service to PPP, there has been a lot of discussion and confusion over what has or hasnt broken and why. I tried to summarize some of the lucid posts you can find in the usenet archive (just search for PPP), and put the summary into the knowledge base.
PPP vs Bridged.