tgfisher
join:2007-05-15
Arlington, TX
|  FTTP in D/FW TX??
I'm currently an AT&T DSL & Dish TV customer, and when a line tech was out trying to diagnose some line issues, he told my hubby that they're installing fiber down the other side of the street and will be coming back up our side, and then we'll be able to get fiber at our house. I *thought* that meant we'd be getting something competetive with Verizon's FIOS, but after reading this forum, I'm not so sure.
What are the chances that they're really putting FTTP in? (I'm in Arlington, btw.) And, will it really be worth it, even if it *is* FTTP?
I've got 6/1.5 on my DSL now, and my only gripe is that it's unstable as holy hell. We'll be fine for a while, and then it'll get flaky for several days going up and down like a... well, you get the idea. And don't get me started on how useless tech support is. Since the problem is intermittent, it's not a line problem in their book. ::sigh:: I'd go to fiber just for stability, even if it wouldn't gain me speed. But it sounds like the TV isn't as good as Dish? (We don't have any HD sets, but we have a 2-set DVR that we adore.) |
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Flippant
So Much For Subtlety
Premium,Mod
join:2000-06-04
Katy, TX
Host:
Filesharing Software
Earthlink Cable
Texas Gulf Coast
AT&T U-verse
AT&T Southwest
| So far it seems that only newly constructed homes and in a portion of Dallas have FTTP. It would be news if they were doing these installs elsewhere. Not that it matters because they are not providing anything better then in other u-verse and DSL areas. It sounds as though you have DSL Elite which is 6Mb/768kb (real life 5Mb/600kb). With u-verse you can get an Elite tier at 6Mb/1Mb that actually runs near these limits.
TV wise they are offering a DVR that can record/play 4 SD feeds simultaneously. However it is a bit weak on the HD side an can only record/play 1 HD feed.
Currently this does not compare well with the Verizon FIOS service at all, but may work out ok for you. |
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tgfisher
join:2007-05-15
Arlington, TX
|  So, assuming whatever they are doing up and down my street is not FTTP, but we're actually getting FTTN, is that going to be any more stable than the DSL crap I've got now? It sounds like if it's actually FTTP (which is unlikely at best) the service would actually be more stable, but if it's FTTN and copper from there, it doesn't seem that there'd be any reason to expect any more reliability, true?
I've just been burned SO damned many times by all of this... my setup is ALWAYS done wrong somehow... I'm the one that they manage to get set up with a package I shouldn't have gotten in the first place, so they can't do anything with it, or they can't break apart my combined package now... the latest is that for some damned dumb reason, **NO ONE** at AT&T can make their system accept a line trouble ticket for my line. I still don't know how my hubby got them to send out a tech, because I got escalated, and even the tier II who spoke English and didn't treat me like a moron (I'm an IT person, and while I'm not a networking geek, I do NOT need to be walked through rebooting my computer when I call in and give them my trouble codes from the modem!) couldn't get the system to accept a trouble ticket.
So, needless to say, I'm not at all trusting when it comes to the "latest and greatest" because I seem to always get the raw end of the deal when it comes down to it. If what they're offering isn't likely to gain me anything, I'm not willing to be a guinea pig for them. |
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Flippant
So Much For Subtlety
Premium,Mod
join:2000-06-04
Katy, TX
Host:
Filesharing Software
Earthlink Cable
Texas Gulf Coast
AT&T U-verse
AT&T Southwest
| Don't know. There are so many factors effecting a DSL connection. I had all kinds of connection woes my first year. Because of help from the site and a lucky second connection I have an amazing connection now. But each installation/new connection is like a snow flake, they are all different and you never know what is going to happen until it is in.
The one positive I can see with u-verse is you get a lot of new infrastructure into your neighborhood at the very least. Things like bridge taps, load coils, bad copper etc, should be a thing of the past. Still to early in the game to rate the overall quality of the connections, but I sure have not sen or heard as many horror stories as I did when DSL was first introduced. That is a very good thing. |
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Flippant
So Much For Subtlety
Premium,Mod
join:2000-06-04
Katy, TX | reply to tgfisher
p.s. I do not know if you want help with your DSL connection problems but you could try the »/forum/sbcdirect forum or the »AT&T Southwest forum for some assistance. |
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tgfisher
join:2007-05-15
Arlington, TX
| Thanks.  It's (::knocking on wood::) been fairly stable for the last week or so.
We ended up replacing the modem (the one we had was about 6 years old), which cleared up one set of problems and made the actual line problems easier to see. Not easier for the line guy to track down, but easier to at least show that it's not on our end. The worst of it was actually at the same time they were doing a lot of work in the big metal box at the end of our street (which the line guy told my hubby was related to the fiber going in) so I actually wonder if they weren't mucking some things up in the process.
We'll still lose signal off an on for about 15 minutes at a time every few days, but it's not the horrific mess it was, where we couldn't get any work done from home or even check our email. We keep looking for a common denominator (time of day, weather, planes flying overhead, you name it) but we haven't seen it yet. It's acting like a noise/interference problem.
If/when it starts up again badly, the new modem has excellent diagnostics, and hopefully we can get someone to believe us and start tracing it without going through 4 hours of "take the router out of the setup" and "reset the modem" and "reboot the computer" and arguing with me about which account login will work or not, and actually track the damned problem down. (Yes, we went 10 rounds with a tech this last time who insisted that the secondary account I'd set up for the modem to use to log in for the PPPoE wouldn't work because it wasn't the primary account -- which is my personal account -- even though it's been working fine for 4 years.) And now that I've found this forum, I'll **DEFINITELY** make use of it. It's refreshing to find rational people with useful information!!! |
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bigdmrk1110
join:2006-04-24
Richardson, TX
| Just as an FYI we got FTTH (all the way to the house) in Northern Richardson last year and I procured the Fiber DSL 3mb package and it works great. The bad news is the UVSERE is still not available in this area. AT&T is saying perhaps later this year they'll open up our area to UVERSE. |
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MarkyD
Premium
join:2002-08-20
Oklahoma City, OK
clubs:
 ·Cox HSI
| said by bigdmrk1110  :Just as an FYI we got FTTH (all the way to the house) in Northern Richardson last year and I procured the Fiber DSL 3mb package and it works great. The bad news is the UVSERE is still not available in this area. AT&T is saying perhaps later this year they'll open up our area to UVERSE. I'm FTTP in Oklahoma City, and they told me that there are no "immediate plans" to offer UVERSE in ANY FTTP areas, period. Makes NO sense...but I heard it from two different techs.
--
-Put this in your profile if you know someone who is fighting, has survived, or died from ninja attacks. |
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tgfisher
join:2007-05-15
Arlington, TX
| reply to bigdmrk1110
said by bigdmrk1110 :Just as an FYI we got FTTH (all the way to the house) in Northern Richardson last year and I procured the Fiber DSL 3mb package and it works great. The bad news is the UVSERE is still not available in this area. AT&T is saying perhaps later this year they'll open up our area to UVERSE. Interesting. If they bring FTTH, I'd be very happy to get fiber internet service (assuming I can get 6MB service) and would be just as happy staying with Dish TV. It's **NOT** the TV service I'm after, just a more reliable DSL-type connection. I don't game (other than the occasional jaunt on Second Life or a Chuzzle challenge) or host any servers, I just need a good, fast, but most importantly RELIABLE internet connection for bringing work home, and my Pandora feed. |
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fiber4tw
@verizon.net | reply to tgfisher
I didn't realize AT&T was doing fiber all the way to the home. Could you guys that have AT&T FTTP post some pic's of the terminal where the fiber cable terminates? I am curious to see what their "ont" looks like. |
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Enlightener
join:2006-01-28
Cedar Park, TX
 ·AT&T U-Verse
1 edit | reply to tgfisher
Mine looks like this....
»www.alcatel.ru/products/fixed/al···hont.gif
There is a plastic tube that extends down to the ground to protect the fiber cable and a cable that goes through the wall into the garage to the APC Powershield box that looks like this:
»www.apc.com/products/family/index.cfm?id=133
If you really want pictures of what it looks like in my house I can do it, but really those two links show you what the actual hardware looks like.
Sadly I'm sure you are getting way more speed then I am. I'm on a 6/1 plan which with overhead is 5/860. |
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odinb
join:2001-11-26
Frisco, TX | Can we get some pictures of the inside of the ONT?
--
Type "miserable failure" in Google |
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Enlightener
join:2006-01-28
Cedar Park, TX
·AT&T U-Verse
| Not that I'm really into `pimp my ride` pics, but here you go. Let me know if there is anything else you'd like to see. |
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