 Review by sirwoogie 
UPDATED: 131 days ago
member for 7.8 years, 2716 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Carleton,Monroe,MI
 $40 per month
 about 3 days
 AT&T
 "Decent sync rate based on my local loop length. Consistent speeds"
 "Levels of support to reach someone that can *do* something"
 "Decent DSL if you have limited options."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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Found out recently that I was able to qualify for DSL at my residence. I currently used Sprint 3G card for my HSI (Review: »/comment/59734), which has been decent. The only complaints there is the inconsistent speed (fluctuates 50% over the day), high latency (~95ms to first hop) and the higher cost ($60/mo).
According to ATT, my local loop length is 13.3k feet, which qualifies me for the Express (768/384) speed tier only. Knowing from reading the ATT forums, distance is only one of the many qualifications that determine maximum acheivable sync rate. But, ATT only uses the distance for their sales qualifications (and has many levels of restrictions on the sales staff to override those settings... more on that later). Line quality from CO or RT to the NID, the NID itself, and the run to the inside wiring are all key factors.
I went with a dry loop install of Express. From the placement of the order to the tech showing up was 5 days. The tech was very knowledgeable and worked very hard to condition my line appropriately. He found a few coils and a split farther down the line which he removed. After the line tech was done, I had a solid 768/384 sync. I regrettably didn't write down my settings exactly at that sync, but I believe my attenuation was 56.7, SNR of 26 and no noise tones. Pretty good! I have a direct cat6 wire run from the NID directly to the modem. I do not have voice, so this is the most direct setup.
I let the modem train for a few days, and saw the numbers were stable. I was going to see if I could sync at Pro speeds (3008/512). I called up sales and after bouncing through about 3 departments, finally reached DSL provisioning. According to their records, I only qualified for the 768 and they could not offer me anything else, nor could they override. After failing to convince this representative and having a work order ticket get rejected, I tried a few more times. Finally, I reached a rep that was willing to take the extra initiative. He worked it with the engineering department to put an override in the system so that it would allow them to place the order for the higher speed.
On 6/25/2009, Dave from the ATT Direct forum here saw my work order and completed it. I now have full 3008/512 sync with no issues. Here is the current stats from the 2Wire gateway:
General Information
DSL Line (Wire Pair): Line 1 (inner pair)
Downstream Rate Cap: 3008 kbps
Downstream Atten. at 300kHz: 56.4 dB
Uncancelled Echo: -25.8 dB Ok
VCXO Frequency Offset: -51.7 ppm Ok
Final Rx Gain: 29.9 dB Ok
Impulse Noise Comp. Tones: 0 Ok
Excessive Impulse Noise: 0 Ok
Impulse noise protection: 0.55
Delay of latency path: 4.00 ms
The only item to note here is the above sync is with Interleave turned on. This introduces 4ms of latency in the connection. Here is a current traceroute to a local DNS server:
$ tracert 4.2.2.2
Tracing route to vnsc-bak.sys.gtei.net [4.2.2.2]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms home [192.168.1.1]
2 23 ms 23 ms 23 ms adsl-99-181-XXX-XXX.dsl.sfldmi.sbcglobal.net [99
.181.XXX.XXX]
3 25 ms 21 ms 23 ms 67.36.65.1
4 22 ms 23 ms 23 ms bb1-g10-0.sfldmi.sbcglobal.net [151.164.43.59]
5 31 ms 30 ms 31 ms ex2-p1-0.eqchil.sbcglobal.net [151.164.189.80]
6 30 ms 31 ms 31 ms Te-3-2.Chicago1.Level3.net [4.68.110.197]
7 102 ms 31 ms 31 ms ae-21-54.car1.Chicago1.Level3.net [4.68.101.98]
8 32 ms 30 ms 31 ms vnsc-bak.sys.gtei.net [4.2.2.2]
I've currently asked Dave from the Direct forum to put me on the Fast Path line to see if the modem can still hold the stable sync and numbers.
UPDATE: 6/29/2009 - 20:39
Dave updated my profile to Fast. New numbers:
General Information:
DSL Line (Wire Pair): Line 1 (inner pair)
Downstream Rate Cap: 3008 kbps
Downstream Atten. at 300kHz: 56.2 dB
Uncancelled Echo: -26.0 dB Ok
VCXO Frequency Offset: -52.4 ppm Ok
Final Rx Gain: 29.9 dB Ok
Impulse Noise Comp. Tones: 0 Ok
Excessive Impulse Noise: 0 Ok
Impulse noise protection: 0.00
Delay of latency path: 0.25 ms
$ tracert 4.2.2.2
Tracing route to vnsc-bak.sys.gtei.net [4.2.2.2]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 2 ms 1 ms 1 ms home [192.168.1.1]
2 14 ms 13 ms 11 ms adsl-99-181-XXX-XXX.dsl.sfldmi.sbcglobal.net [99.181.XXX.XXX]
3 14 ms 11 ms 13 ms 67.36.65.1
4 14 ms 11 ms 13 ms bb1-g10-0.sfldmi.sbcglobal.net [151.164.43.59]
5 19 ms 19 ms 19 ms ex2-p1-0.eqchil.sbcglobal.net [151.164.189.80]
6 64 ms 20 ms 19 ms Te-3-2.Chicago1.Level3.net [4.68.110.197]
7 20 ms 20 ms 19 ms ae-21-54.car1.Chicago1.Level3.net [4.68.101.98]
8 21 ms 18 ms 19 ms vnsc-bak.sys.gtei.net [4.2.2.2]
Trace complete.
Good deal!
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