Hey Shelby.

As you may know DSL is distace-based speed on the bellsouth page they tell you that 1500kbps is THE MAX that means if you are at the Central Office and te further away you are the slower your connection is....................A misleading site but next to 1500kbps they have an "*" and at the bottom of the page it says modem capeable of speeds up to 1500kpbs but speed is not warenteed.........or somthin like that

try using registry tweaks from speedguide.net...or see if tech support can have you put you on a noise profile

hay have you gone to bellsouths ftp site and downlaoded latest drivers? I am installer in pensacola and blue screen of death can be fixed. »ftp://software:download@ftp.be ··· dme.html

The blue screen is known issue with the usb modem. A bit of warning, be very very afraid of ME with the USB
any questions email me at fringe@bellsouth.net

The USB problem with is not related to WinME since it also affects Win98.

It took me four days to find out that the Alcatel USB modem was the source of the problem (blue screen from hell every few minutes, and during ME installation). The upgrade to the software WILL NOT FIX the fatal error. It will only delay the crash for about 45 min.

Try going to the "Tools" section and using the tweaks they recommend. I was getting nearly the exact same down/up speeds in Shreveport but after changing my RWIN setting in the registry to 64, I get consistent, sustained 1.5Mb + down and 220 up regardless of the time of day and mine isn't running through a surge protector either (never tried it with one). DSLReports ROCKS!

distance is not really an issue, it is more in the quality of the lines where most customers problems lie. there have been several customers that live beyond the 18,000 feet from their central office that are still getting the 1.5Mbps (1500kbps)or better speeds. and to directly reference the * it says "Bell South fast access service is a best effort service and no speeds are guaranteed"
but you would be suprised at the number of customers that call in even after reading that complaining because they aren't getting the 1500kbps they were told the modem was "supposed to be getting. and to address the gentleman's comment in the previous rating of the service , you can not plug the modem in through a power surge protector and if you do most times you will not get sync at all. you will not be able, except under very rare circumstances to sync or connect with the line plugged in to a power strip. The installation guide states that the ADSL line should be plugged directly into the wall with "no" filters.

i think not supporting home networking is a great idea. if you don't know what you are doing as far as netwroking goes then you have no business touching it. bellsouth will never support networks over the phone. you should be gracious they will even allow it. as for linux, linux makes up probably less than 1/2 % of the market, why should they support it? same as home networking, wanna run linux better know what you are doing.you can easily buy the equipment off ebay and bellsouths driver site offers pppoe software for linux.and by the way, the phone people you are talking to only make 9 bucks an hr so you are going to find any networking wizards are linux whizzes there, never will! wanna pay out more for your dsl? maybe if they up the price ten bucks they could afford to hire extra support that is more knowledgable and pay them right. but if you knew bellsouth then you would know it ain't gonna happen. the average stay for a adsl support tech is less than 3 months due to the low pay. so be lucky they know what they do.

I can vouch for that as well...i've been with tech support for about 4 months..i can tell you that no one that i work with knows a thing about linux, most don't know the first thing about MAC OS's...our pay is weak, our benifits aren't the greatest and our hours vary...but, on the point of networking...there are so many different ways to do it...how are we supposed to know how your network is set up???bellsouth never said you couldn't use a network..you can...but only from your own knowledge, not ours..oh yea another thing..after this week tech support will be even more fun for customers because they changed our database and gave us 1 day of training...and that was about 2 1/2 months ago...so beware...you will have to wait longer and answers to your questions will even take longer...hope you have the patience....

you do know if you are tracked down for posting to this site you can be terminated from your job at the Huntington office right? just so you know. this did not happen to me and i agree whole heartedly with your entire statement , and i have relayed the statement about the newer oracle piece of junk database that you refered to also in several other posts.

INDEED, being an installer with hours and hours of hold time as well as bad info i do so agree with you. Very rare for me to get the same tech twice and i get the seasoned vets of the place! The help desk is a contracted vendor to the phone company so be prepared, and read all you can on your own.

I feel BS should provide a "MINIMAL" amount of support for users in a N/W environment. I'm not talking about troubleshooting the entire users networking problem. But more like when someones connection has been working fine, and today it doesn't, don't just sh*t on them because "they are not in a supported configuration". My experiences below detail some of my problems. I now have a Laptop to use as a stand-alone, with Enternet 300, and it runs fine, (when my line is working). With this I have proven that everytime I get no/slo access through my router, it is the line, not my N/W. Whenever I get no/slo access I move my connection from the router to the laptop and I get the same results. After a while it will just start working, just as it did when I was only using router and just waiting for it to start working again.

I have been having a problem, since 12/22 where my IFITL craps out in the afternoons. During the window of 11am to 6pm reliability is very questionable. Usually never have a problem outside this window. Some days it will work fine all afternoon, other days it will be down for only a portion of that time, (for example, 12/30 down 11:15 to 2:15). I use a Netgear RT-314 Router, but recently was able to confirm that my problem is NOT due to my router or my Enternet S/W, etc. I had another period of no conn/DNS errors on 1/3. I unhooked my DSL Cable from the router and connected it to a laptop I had setup earlier in the week, which has Win98SE and BS's Enternet 300 S/W (and was working on FastAccess when I configured it). Well, now hooked up to DSL with this (BS Approved configuration), I still kept getting the same errors as with my router. I was on the phone with first level TS for about 2 hours, trying all sorts of things. Nothing seemed to work, then all of a sudden it started working again, around 5:45pm. The tech had a theory, some notice he had, that it might be the IP addr I pulled. Supposedly they are having trouble with IP addr's that start w/65 or 66. We tried unhooking the DSL line for a few minutes, to get it to reset and then pull another IP, this made no difference. I still kept getting 65 IP Addr, as a matter of fact, when it started working my IP was 65. Finally he made an appt. for someone to come out, 1/23. Oh well, at least I now know for certain it's not my router. Also, yesterday same thing and this time the 1st level tech got a line tech to check the line back and he said there was some piece of equip which was not responding. He said they'd send a truck in 3-5 days. However, later that evening, around 5pm it started working again. So I wonder if another tech, (maybe doing an install in my neighborhood) found the problem and fixed it OR maybe the problem is totally different and what the line tech was looking at was OBE. Any guesses?

Provide tech support for networking or not...who cares?

Just give me the option of a modem that does support hookup to a LAN and if I go this route, charge me a reasonable fee for tech support if I do require it. I've used both the internal PCI and the external USB modems. Both have installed and gone online without a hitch, but a software proxy setup sucks. Offering Alcatels Speed Touch Home modem that DOES support hookup to a LAN would be most satisfying.

YOU ALL DO REALIZE THERE IS A WAY TO GET NETWORK SUPPORT RIGHT?
you have the option of paying $10.00 a month more for your service and you will be set up on a "small business" account then your networking will be supported. this is the reason that regular ADSL support for Bell South does not support the home networking. and yes technicians at the help desk do only make $9.00 an hour and have to put up with a lot of silly rules and grief while doing thier job not including what impatient, or irrational customers put them through on the phone while they are trying to do thier jobs. and while it is true they do not teach the agents the information they need before they put them on the floor they do spend a lot of time teaching them Customer service skills. though the hardware support side of it would be more beneficial to both agent and customer alike they would rather concentrate on the touchy feely side of customer relations. than to have people there that really know what they are doing and are able to help the customer solve thier problems. it is true that the pay is lousy for what the technicians do but that is because the help desk work is out sourced to a technical support company with extreme and very strict policies and guidelines,(and a bunch of really stupid silly rules to follow) IF they would lighten up on the technicians that know the jobs there that they have now and IF they actually trained the technicians to support the modems and software before they put them on the phones then there would be much less complaints on this page every week,month or day about how slack the technical support for Bell South ADSL service really is

As a former BS tech I can tell you that networking in the past was not permitted at all. I have had several people's service terminated simply because they were networking and refused to disable it. The new policy is much better. Would you rather that BS turned off your DSL because you networked?

On home networking???

Folks having a home network pick DSL simply because a regular dail-up connection works way too slow on a home network.

I simply don't understand this policy at all. And BellSouth is very vague about it.

John in Auburn, Ga

BellSouth actually had a good reason when this policy was in place. At that time BellSouth was using Cysco routers. The cyscos would crash if the same username pulled more than one ip address. Those who set up networks would pull multiple ips for the same username and crash the router. BS would then have to realize it crashed and send a tech to reboot it.

Last spring BS went to Redback routers that won't crash so easily. Hence, the new policy has come about. "We don't care if you network, just don't call us about it." A major improvement.
--
Mac Bridger
____________________________

"If you're a network engineer, then why are you calling me?"

BS new policy on networking is it is okay to do, but you are on your own. They won't cut you off, but they ain't gonna support it either. I don't think they're trained on it, but want to let us do it if we're smart enough ourselves.

on the bs networking,if you people would ask us we would inform you that we do support networking,just only on the business accounts,so if you are to stupid to learn how to do it yourselfs,then upgrade your accounts,its only about 10 to 15 dollars more a month...just call your friendly tec support agent and ask them about it,chances are that they will transfer you to sales and service,let them know of your agenda and the situation will be taken care of,

until then deal with it,if you can't figure it out yourselfs than you shouldn't use it....this goes for computers as well,but this is a rant for another day.......

Hehehehehe...

an AOL domain...

Hehehehehe...

Good call about business accounts though. Ooooh... Cayman router... For only $600..
--
Mac Bridger
____________________________

"If you're a network engineer, then why are you calling me?"

PSG sells them new in the 300's

I say we all hire lawyers and sue bellsouth for false adv, and breach of their contract then maybe they'll stop playing around. there is another company being sued cause it turns out that co. also advertised 1.5mbs but as their customer base grew, they had to spread the service thinner to accomadate everyone and speed suffered. i thought i was paying for 1.5 too

Sue Bellsouth? Good luck with that. I have had the unfortunate experience with DirecPC. Those are the people that should be pursued. I have had service with DirecPC for over a year and it was nothing but frustration. I read all the posts on how BS sux. I've had BSFA for about 4 months now and have yet to complain. Sure there have been outages that have lasted for 2-3 days. But hey, thats the way it goes. Its hardware man. Goes out and comes back. I can deal with that. Why don't you try to use DirecPC for a little while and you will drop to your knees beggin to come back to the "poor" connection of BS. After all those months with DPC getting frustrated over their supposed "broadband", I am happy that I have the poor, crappy connection of BS even if it drops to 500kbps d/l(most of the time its 1200kbps). Its better than DPC's connection which is only three times as fast as dial-up, although the advertise up to 7 times faster.

The website does that, I even got a shipping confermation, saying my modem had shipped last year. Glad it was up and running on the day promised, mine was one day late I belive, but no biggie.

Hope you enjoy.

Eddited for typo

Well, I tried to upgrade in a phone call. They told me that I wasn't eligible, even though I have DSL through them now (since 12-2001). I mentioned that I thought it was odd and that I was disappointed that I not only wasn't going to be able to get the better speeds both ways, but that I wouldn't get a static IP address. They immediately went into ravenous salesperson mode and offered me the $14.95/month static IP address to my current account that costs me $49.95/month plus the regulatory recovery charge they imposed on me without asking me. So, for about $65/month I could have had 1200 down/219 up with a static IP address. Not a bargain anywhere in these United States, especially since they offer the Extreme service with more capability for $10 less per month. I mentioned that to them and got silence returned. I asked if there could be an adjustment to the fees on my existing account/service-- more silence. I may have to re-visit cable internet service, even if if I hate Charter's poor service.

I'm sorry to hear that, CJ. Whatever you end up with, I wish you luck.

Tim

I'll be happy with whatever ISP I end up with, only as long as I accept that I will only reach mediocity.

I have just done the same thing in Hoover. I was paying about $80 a month for 18mb Uverse...now I'm getting twice the speed for half the cost.