The Apocalypse of DSL

[caraig]

Q: So what's been happening to Jon's DSL?
A: Verizon is committed to providing the best customer service, and we--*choke*rattle*gack*CRUNCH*

Q: Thank you, Darth Nukus. Let's try this again. So what's been happening to Jon's DSL?
A: For the past two months, Verizon trucks have been swarming like cicadas all over Staten Island, laying fiber optic cable for their new FiOs lines. They've been tying up traffic, making a nuisance of themselves, and basically getting in everyone's way. The upshot of this is that changes have been made to the publicly-switched telephone system on Staten Island.

Q: Creepy. So what are these changes?
A: While Verizon breaks out their new FiOs system, they're having to rearrange things in the Central Offices (COs) to adapt to this. Staten Island is also still undergoing strong development, and COs are not something you can get just by planting a seed in the ground, give it water, sunshine, and fertilizer (well, maybe fertilizer...) and grow. To adapt to this growth that's been going on for the better part of a decade, plus the new FiOs network, some COs are having to reroute, recable, and realign their hardware.

Q: What do these changes mean for Jon's DSL?
A: Some of these changes have had the oddball wingnut fruitbar effect of making the loopback from the local CO to Jon's house longer than a DSL signal can go.

Q: What is loopback?
A: This is all rampant speculation, but.... In order for Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) to function properly, the signal strength has to be a certain level (measured either in watts or bels, I'm not sure.) This signal is generated by the CO, and has to be strong enough to go out to the subscriber's house and back to the CO. Thus 'loopback.' If the distance is too long, the signal will not have enough strength to make the round trip and still carry readable information. This is the bane of people everywhere who want DSL but live too far from the CO. The mad scientist in Jon's mind figures that there's some way to boost the signal from the subscriber's location, but then realizes that this is called ISDN, which now costs about ten times more than DSL.

Q: But Jon had DSL before! Why is this 'loopback distance' too long now?
A: Remeber all those changes being made to Staten Island's telephone system?

Q: ... Oh hells, no....
A: Oh hells, yes. Because Verizon is laying down new fiber lines and is having to reconfigure the CO's for these new configurations, since he first got DSL the loop from Jon's house to the CO has growin. It is now technically too far for DSL to reach Jon's house. This is also possibly the reason why Jon's phone line keeps going out, but why Jon and not the other houses around him, is a blessed mystery, man. It's an X-file, call Fox Mulder.

Q: So who does Darth Nukus have to... persuade to get this fixed?
A: Verizon is aware of this issue, and an engineering ticket has been issued. Unfortunately Verizon has learned much from it's years in customer service, and isolates the customer from the people who are actually working to fix things. Their customer service people are exceptionally nice and patient, but only because, I suspect, they have to be. The exact identities of Verizon technicians are apparently classified UMBRA... or even MAJESTIC, for all the good it would do.

Q: Never have to face customers and explain to them why things went wrong and why they're not being fixed right now? Sounds like a great job, how does Jon get it?
A: I'm not sure, but I'm reasonably certain it involves acts that are still illegal in about half a dozen states. And a coconut.

Q: So when does Jon get his DSL back?
A: Sometime within the next few days, Verizon engineers will see what they need to do to get Jon his DSL back. It is entirely possible that Jon's DSL at this time and in the forseable future will not be able to be restored, in which case he will be refunded without penalty the imaginary money he paid for his imaginary DSL, since Verizon is, essentially, breaching their contract.

This FAQ has been brought to you by e, sqrt(-1), and the letter 'AE.' Pax.

EDIT: I am also up for suggestions as to low-cost, always-on net access to tide me over for the next few months. It does not have to be OMGFAST! broadband, but some speed would be nice.

Comments

[yotogi.livejournal.com]

It's ULTRAVIOLET, commie, and don't you forget it.

[caraig.livejournal.com]

I know, I know. The Computer only hurts me because it loves me.

Now I need to activate another clone....

[graybunny.livejournal.com]

Actually, what you need to boost the signal to go longer distances is called a T1. I'm told that it's essentially the same technology, it's just that with a T1 they drop in a repeater every mile or so. And that's why T1's cost about a thousand dollars a month.

Of course, just because you're paying a thousand dollars a month doesn't mean you get any better service. I had one for a while a few years ago, and there was a month and a half when it went out every afternoon. Nothing really happened until enough outages racked up that I was able to tell them that they were teetering on the edge of their SLA and about to void the contract.

Then suddenly things started happening and it was all fixed within a couple of days.

[caraig.livejournal.com]

That T1 is an atomic-powered version of DSL really doesn't surprise me. I somehow don't expect my telling them that I will cancel my service if they don't get their act together will help, though. I'm just one customer that they can do without in a whole city or even region full of customers. It's kind of pessimistic, but beyond that, there's not much that one can do against a legal monopoly.

Still, interesitng that T1 and DSL are probably sort of the same tech. And that does explain why T1 has such a high price tag on it!

[points.livejournal.com]

Not the same tech, though, obviously, they share a lot of the same hardware.

[graybunny.livejournal.com]

I said that badly. Maybe it was that the signaling was the same at the electrical level? Anyway, the gist of what I was told is that DSL is an adaptation of T1 technology with the hard/expensive bits left out, such as the repeaters, so that it could be offered at low cost but had distance versus speed limitations.

[collie13.livejournal.com]

Here in Silicon Valley they're about $500 a month now. Pretty darned spiffy to have in the house, too. My housemates still suffer geek glee from it -- you say, "T1!" and they both giggle delightedly. ;)

[graybunny.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah. You can tell anybody who's been around for a while because they have a visceral reaction to "T1", which used to be the holy grail... Of course, these days, you can get a $50 cable internet connection which is substantially faster on the download, and you have to be careful what you host on a T1 because a single user could saturate your bandwidth.