Cyberonic → Cyberonic vs U-Verse

Thinking about dumping Cyberonic after a few years -- the rationale is I can get 12/1.5 U-Verse with 5+1 statics for the same price as 6/768 Covad (I only sync to about 3/768 in reality) with 5+1 statics.

Cyberonic/COVAD has been rock solid, support has been great when I needed them (like 3 times in the past 6 years), doesn't block ports and just works so I am little fearful.

Anybody made the jump? Comments??

I've thought about it as well, but the very stable Cyberonic / Covad service has kept me from attempting to jump.

For reliability reasons, I have a dual WAN set up with TWC/RR and Cyberonic/Covad. If I go to Uverse, I'll dump TWC first. If Uverse is very very stable, I might go back to single WAN.

Keep us posted on your Uverse choice. Which Uverse plan offers 12/1.5 with 5+1 statics for that good price?

Internet Max (12Mb down/1.5Mbps up) is $55/month for 1 dynamic; a block of 8 static IPs (5 usable, 1 assigned to the router) costs $15/month which brings the cost to $70/month. I also get $20/month discounted for the first 6 months ($50/month). I have a $150 install fee.

What has kept me from going to U-Verse has been: (1) the lack of static IPs, (2) the inability to have just the Internet connectivity [don't want TV/phone thru U-Verse] and (3) the rock solid connectivity of Cyberonic/Covad.

Cyberonic charges me $66/month currently and I should get close to triple the download speed with twice the upload speed. My last day on Cyberonic is scheduled to be 2/2/2010. I have been with them since 2002. I hate to leave them, but running the numbers it just makes sense. Absolutely no Cyberonic bashing here on my part -- until now, they have provided me with a reliable unrestricted pipe and stayed out of my way.

I'll let you know how it goes.

So, how is the Uverse setup going?

Uverse offered me business Uverse service 18 months ago, which was internet only, but then built the system 200 feet short of my NIC (so far).

bodysurf, aren't you one of the former SprintION or Sprint Business DSL customers?

It's scheduled to be installed on 2/12/2010.

The biggest hassle so far is that I could not even schedule an install date for UVerse until about 4 days after the Cyberonic/COVAD DSL was disconnected. So I have been without internet connectivity at my house since 2/1/2010 which is unfortunate.

I was hoping that I could tell Cyberonic to disconnect the DSL on "X" date and have UVerse install it on "X+1" date, but AT&T's system won't even allow you to process the order until the line is completely free and COVAD notifies AT&T it is free (this took about 4 days after the DSL was disconnected). This is important obviously for anyone who wants minimal downtime.

In retrospect, if I would have known this, I probably would have gotten cable internet at my house for a month.Nope. I tried to get SprintION right before it was discontinued but they wouldn't let me because of excessive distance to the CO (about 11K).

Hmmm. So this is not bare line DSL for UVerse, huh? They want to share a voice line?

Keep us posted on how it progresses.

Cyberonic/COVAD required voice service to be on the ADSL line when I ordered it back in 2002. I am not sure if at some point after that I could have cancelled the voice service on it and had "dry line"/"naked" DSL.

AT&T UVerse's "system" does not allow people to have any other form of DSL to be at that physical address in order to process the order. So I couldn't, say, have AT&T UVerse placed on a different loop. Or I couldn't, say, tell them I want to order a new phone POTS number and put UVerse on that while leaving my COVAD DSL alone. Or I couldn't have two existing phone numbers at my address with COVAD DSL on one and ATT DSL on the other and say put UVerse on the ATT line and leave the COVAD DSL line alone.

However, once UVerse in installed, dialtone on the loop is not required, so I could cancel the POTS service and not risk losing the internet connectivity (not sure if I could have done that with Cyberonic). Also, my understanding is that *after* UVerse is installed some have been successful in adding DSL to a different line. It also seems to be the case (although I am not 100% sure here) that one cannot have multiple UVerse DSL lines to at one physical address.

Just call me "guinea pig".

I had UVerse internet only installed on 2/12/2010 with 8 (5 usable) static IPs. My line is just a hair outside of 3K feet from the VRAD and I sync at around 19Mb down 2Mb up. I am provisioned at the highest speed AT&T will allow me which is at 12Mb down/1.5Mb up and speed tests showing me getting 11.42Mb/s down and 1.48Mb/s up so basically I am getting almost exactly what I am supposed to. It was a bummer with Cyberonic because I was provisioned at 6/768 and initially got about 4/680 but towards the end I was getting more like 3/768.

There are a few limitations relative to the COVAD/Cyberonic ADSL I had such as:

1. The way to configure static IPs is "funky" -- basically you're supposed to have a device grab an IP via DHCP and then you configure the modem to give that same device the same IP each time and that makes it "static".
2. The 2wire modem (RG) AT&T provides cannot function as a bridge if you have more than 1 IP. In the same vein, you can't have a router behind the RG that is routing the rest of your IPs without restorting to some extraordinarily complex configuration. The simple (but not exactly correct) answer is because the RG assumes 1 IP = 1 MAC address.
4. Port 25 outgoing is blocked by default, but AT&T will unblock it if I ask them to.

but these are unimportant to me. What is important to me is I am getting just a hair under triple the download speed and double the upload speed I had with Cyberonic for less money ($60/month for UVerse vs $66/month for Cyberonic). Cyberonic's install fee was $99 way back when while UVerse was $150. Also noteworthy (but not important to me) is that AT&T will allow you to set the rDNS to your static IPs and allow you to have up to 128 static IPs (AFAIK, Cyberonic would not configure rDNS or allow you to obtain more than 8 static IPs.)

So bottom line is: So far, so good. If you have any particular questions relative to Cyberonic, I'd be glad to answer them.

Thanks for the update. This all sounds great.

Just so I undertand the configuration for multiple IPs, you can have multiple devices behind the RG, each with separate public IPs, correct?

Are these separate IPs all fixed, or can you have some fixed and some served via DHCP from the RG (but all public IPs)?

Correct.You can tell the RG to have a particular device (based on the MAC address of the NIC essentially) to either (1) always grab a particular fixed public IP, (2) grab any of the available fixed public IP pool via DHCP or (3) use NAT. This is done via a built-in web interface which I find to be pretty intuitive.

Other criticisms I hear about UVerse besides those mentioned in the previous post is that the DSL connection is "interleaved" rather the "fast path" which adds a little bit to the ping times (which I guess makers gamers feel like their hair is on fire). Not a big problem for me because my Cyberonic was "interleaved" too.

Thanks!