Ugly NorthPoint news > NorthPoint yes, Covad no -- question

NorthPoint yes, Covad no -- question

FYI Northpoint only sold SDSL or IDSL, no ADSL.

Sorry to inform you patientguy but I also had ADSL from Northpoint and I am in your area - Rockville

Wow I've never heard of anyone having ADSL from Northpoint. The Copper Rocket DSLAMS they used were not set up for linesharing. Was what you folks had dedicated line or shared? What kind of modem did you have? Was it perhaps SDSL equipment set up with a lower upload speed cap? I guess this is all moot now anyway but I'm interested.

Dedicated line - copper rocket modem

reply to adeitrich
FYI - NP did provide ADSL through MSN, using CopperMtn and Cisco DSLAMs with Arescom modems.

said by DSLGal:

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FYI - NP did provide ADSL through MSN, using CopperMtn and Cisco DSLAMs with Arescom modems.

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reply to adeitrich
I made some calls yesterday and learned that I had a product that was actually SDSL, not ADSL. NorthPoint was limiting the upstream rate and pricing it like ADSL. But yes all the equipment was SDSL-like. It was also explained to me that Covad has pretty tight limits on distance from the CO, etc., which is why they won't service me.

I'm off to try DSLi and Rhythms. God help me.

I'm sorry to hear of your hassles. A lot of us miss our NP service. It seems that because of the equipment they used they were able to reach further than most providers. That has left a lot of former NP customers in a lurch. Do you have a cable option? Unless you absolutely need a static IP cable may be the way to go. I personally got good service though a small relatively local company. Most aspects of their service are great but the throughput doesn't match my old NP line. The story you got about "Excessive Bridge Tap" may well be true on the line that they are trying to use for service. I don't know how much you know about DSL service so forgive me if I tell you stuff you already know. A bridged tap: Lets take a line running down your street for instance. It runs from the CO to your street, down your street and then on to somewhere else. A bridged tap is where they just tap into that line somewhere in the middle leaving the part that runs past you connected. There can be several legs off a single line. The pair running to your building is probably one of these. The wire that continues past your building has several negative effects on DSL service. Northpoint paid good money to make sure the dedicated lines they leased were free of bridged taps and other impediments to DSL service. The problem comes when you try to get DSL service from DSL providers who use shared line equipment. I incorrectly called your old NP service SDSL when it was "technically" ADSL in your case because it was sold to you with asymmetrical up/down speeds but the equipment was dedicated line stuff. Typically ADSL service uses shared Line equipment (although here too Rhythms and Covad sell shared line service in SDSL speeds). This is where the problems like you having comes in. They are trying to share your voice line and it probably has bridged taps where your NP line didn't. It's a real battle to get your local phone company to put much effort into swapping your voice line over to the old Northpoint pair or removing the bridged taps from your current line. Who is your local phone company BTW? Do they offer DSL themselves? Sometimes they will do for themselves what they won't do for others. Maybe you can get service through them. Let them fix the line and as soon as you can cheaply get out of the contract get better service from someone else on your "now OK" line. Just a thought. The situation your in is one of issues in the political and legal battle between the CLECs and the ILECs. DSL Reports is the place to keep track of all this and find help for sure.

FWIW...Maybe it says this somewhere above.. but I had Northpoint and WAS lineshared. And this was with one of the 3com SDSL Copermountain type modems. No new cable from the pole to the house, they just tapped it off the dmarc with CAT5 over to my PC. No filters or nothing inside the house (perhaps in the Telco side of the dmarc).

15400 feet from CO based on estimating tools. IDSL only available from Covad. So...off to Time Warner I go...reluctantly.

FWIW...
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Whatalahoo!

All this is really kind of moot now but interesting none the less. It is good info for those folks who are having trouble getting service because the ISPs say that their phone line isn't up to par for DSL service. If NP serviced you there is a good pair there. You may have had an extra pair running to you house already. They didn't need to do a drop for me either. Only really old installation drops have less than two pair most have four or six nowadays. If you have a modern network interface box (dmarc) you almost surely have multiple pairs. If your service was lineshare there had to be filters somewhere You can open the telco (or user) side of the dmarc and look to see if what that CAT 5 was connected to. There is nothing scary in there just wire and lugs. Usually if you don't have individual filters on each phone your dmarc will have a filter plugged in where the phone line test jack modules go on the user side.

In reality T.W. cable will probably be fine. Some folks have fantastic cable service. Have you checked DSL Reports to see what people in your area have said about T.W. Whatever it is it sure beats the hell out of dialup.:)

reply to Anon
Yes, MSN's service was provided through a dedicated line.