 Review by alanhdsl 
UPDATED: 1.1 years ago
member for 10.1 years, 2727 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Phoenix,Maricopa,AZ
 $50 per month
 about 20 days
 Qwest
 "Fast, great technology"
 "Coordination problems, very limited availability"
 "Pretty good"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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I'm rewriting the review, as I've switched to Qwest VDSL ("Choice Online" is their marketing term). They're offering it in parts of the Phoenix and Denver areas. They also have a "Choice" service in Omaha, but that's cable TV.
I ordered the "Select" service, which includes 1Mb up/down data, and up to 4 IPs for $44.95. The IPs are dynamic, not static. Installation (without Ethernet card) was $99.95. If you don't already have an Ethernet card, they will sell you one for $25. They also offer a "Classic" service which is 256Kb up/down and one IP for $34.95/mo.
I also got the TV package. For $37.95/mo, it has about 100 channels and includes the digital gateway rental. Premium channels are available for a fee. Ala carte channel selections are also available, but don't include the gateway rental, so they aren't a very good deal. The install fee of $29.95 is waived if you're getting the Online service too.
How it works: VDSL operates at up to 22Mb, but has a very short range. If you aren't close to your central office, you have to have a remote terminal (Universal Service Access Multiplexer, USAM) in your neighborhood. That's what I have, around 800 feet away from my house. A fiber optic line feeds it with the video and internet data. This is multiplexed onto the phone line. The VDSL stream includes three video streams at 5Mb each, and up to 1Mb of data. The remainder of the bandwidth is used for control.
At the house, a splitter divides the telephone and data service. Depending on your home wiring, the data signal can be connected via a direct run to the digital gateway, or can be sent through your existing coax cable. If you do this, a splitter at the gateway pulls the signal back off the coax.
The digital gateway is the brains of the operation. Qwest uses a box made by Next Level Communications [now owned by Motorola]. It separates the internet connection, which is output on an Ethernet port. This can go directly to a PC via a crossover cable, or go to a hub to feed a home network. The TV signals come out via a coax connection. The gateway provides up to 3 channels at once, on channels 4, 7, and 13 (these can be changed if there's interference). All 100+ channels are not being sent over the VDSL line at once. When you tune to channel 10, the gateway sends a request back to the head end to send channel 10 over video connection A. The gateway then sends that out over channel 4. Each of the video connections has its own remote. The video streams are MPEG encoded. I didn't notice any artifacts or other problems with the picture. Channel switching was fast despite the round-trip request. The box also has an interactive program guide.
For the remotes to work in rooms away from the gateway, they use radio and not infrared signals. A small antenna is put on the coax behnd the TVs to pick up the signal from the remote, and the gateway gets it off the coax. The gateway box itself also has an IR pickup, so you can use a programmable remote or other system to operate it from the same room.
Taping programs on a timer is tricky, because the gateway has to tune to the right channel. The program guide offers a "scheduled tune" feature, which sets the channel at a particular time. You can also use a DVR that has an IR blaster -- TiVo works fine with it.
On the data side, the gateway acts as a bridge, with a 10Mb Ethernet port. IPs are assigned to the PCs on your home network via DHCP. They offer up to 4 for the Choice service, but I don't know what would happen if you connected more. A speed test showed about 717 down/780 up. The ISP is Qwest.net. VDSL subscribers are not being migrated to MSN.
Although ADSL and VDSL are both data products, they're operated by two different departments in Qwest, and they don't coordinate with each other. To switch to VDSL, I had to call the ADSL dept to have that service disconnected, then call the VDSL dept to schedule an install. It would be nice if the disconnect/connect could be done at the same time. As it was, I was down nearly a week. The VDSL office won't schedule an install if there are incompatible features on the line, so downtime is unavoidable.
The install process took three hours, but most of that was taken up replacing the line from the pole to my house and installing the new demarc box and splitter. This is a 50 year old house, and the aerial to it was flat, 2-conductor heavy wire. There was no demarc box, just an old Bell System lightning arrestor. My house actually had two lines, though one was not in use. Unfortunately, the installer followed the wrong one to the wrong pole (they go to different junction boxes) and couldn't figure out why it was dead. I finally pointed out the other wire was the active one.
Once that was straightened out, the rest went smoothly. The new aerial is four-conductor twisted pair. His meter showed the VDSL signal active on the line. He removed the antique Bell System hardware and put in a new demarc box. This model has a built-in POTS splitter. I had already installed CAT 5 telephone and Ethernet wiring in the house, so he just had to connect the data port to the line going to the gateway's location.
The gateway synched up fine. He had to call in to activate its MAC address. I rebooted my desktop PC and it got an IP just fine. Browsing is very snappy.
Update (4/3/2002)
The prices have gone up -- Classic service is now $39.95 ($49.95 without TV) and Select service is now $49.95 ($54.95 without TV). The Classic service is now 640Kb rather than 256Kb. Unfortunately, the Select service did not get a speed increase.
Update (4/15/2004)
Next Level is now owned by Motorola. The prices are now $26.99 ($31.95 without TV) for Classic (which seems to be 256K/256K again) and $39.99 ($44.99 without TV) for Select, which is now 1.5M down and 1.0M up.
Update (8/12/2008)
I now have 3MB/1MB (Premier) service which is $54.99. Qwest is also offering HDTV service, though it does not offer a DVR or work with a third party one.
Update (9/14/2008)
Qwest is in the process of phasing out the Choice VDSL service. New signups will get ADSL for data and DirecTV for video. Too bad -- it was a pretty nice service when they introduced it, but they didn't want to spend the money to upgrade it. I'm switching to Cox.
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