Review by tcstone 
UPDATED: 289 days ago
member for 6.5 years, 401 visits, last login: 9 days ago
 Glendale,Los Angeles,CA
 $25 per month (12 month contract)
 about 11 days
 SBC
 "Fastest service I've had yet! Yahoo tie-in has some virtues. Very rare outages."
 "dynamic IP, PPPoE, no FTP access to large online storage space, ads on Yahoo! portal page"
 "Fabulous for $25/mo!"
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(ratings above consensus)
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I was a transition from Directv to SBC/Yahoo (local phone company). I'm very close to the remote CO so I get great performance from ADSL (I wish upload cap was still more generous). I get a peak download rate of almost 1,300 kbps and upload peak around 300 kbps. The line is rated at 1500 down 256 up. My previous service with Directv was 128k down, so this doubling is a nice improvement (makes my Retrospect FTP backups much faster). Even though the sync rate is probably the same, my downloads are better now with the SBC service. Previously, although the peak rate was the same, the Directv speed fluctuated a lot -- a download speed graph looked like mountains. Perhaps routing problems.. I'm not sure. Now I get a solid block of full speed download on my graph. That translates into faster overall downloads. Even web pages seem "snappier." I'm very pleased with the SBC network performance.
I wish SBC could have done some sort of hot swap (since they were the Telco party for the Directv line anyway), but they had to take several days to "turn off" my Directv service, clear the line, then install their service. That said, 11 calendar days isn't too bad, and they provided dialup service free during that time.
Some of the SBC/Yahoo perks are nice, such as the 260MB "briefcase" storage etc. Too bad I can't use an FTP client to use that space, it's a web-based upload tool only with per-upload limit at 5MB.
I don't really mind the PPPoE since my Airport handles that. My line has been up for about a week now and the PPPoE connect time is at 130 hours. My IP address has changed since my initial connection, but probably not in that 130 hours.
I haven't gotten my first bill yet, but I assume it will be correctly billed on my phone bill (no equip. or install charges). The billing goes up to 59.99 after the first year "promotion."
Keep up the good work SBC.
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Update 3-6-04
Actually, after a year the price went down not up! The renewal offer was, I think, $36.95 for this "deluxe" package with the 256k upload speed. I'm still very happy with this service, though I wish even higher upload speeds were available.
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Update 5-28-07
A few years ago we moved to a new location farther from CO (~9000') and now the package offered is up to 3Mbit down, up to 512Kbit up. I get about 2.5Mb down, 420Kbit up. Have still had excellent reliability, good ping times, good speeds. Wish I had more upload speed though. For the money, it's a great deal.
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Update 12-23-07
Well, the system, in a very cute way, asked me to update my review. Actually, I'd have to say that nothing has changed since the previous update of 5-28-07. No complaints. Some rare packet loss issues.
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Pacific Bell - SBC
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Glendale and close to the CO, thats all you had to say..