 Review by David 
UPDATED: 1 year ago
member for 7.4 years, 4032 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Granite City,Madison,IL
 $34 per month
 about 7 days
 Ameritech
 "New modem, new house, new service"
 "None really; flatwire is still a bad thing"
 "a good install with plenty of options down the road."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings above consensus)
|
Well I finally gave up the apartment lifestyle for a house, it is an older home so the wiring was a bit of a challenge this time. I had to install a nid splitter based on some of the wiring situations presented in this old house from the 1940's. When I inspected the current wiring situation my chances of a good install with the existing infrastructure was paralyzed. There was even flat telephone wire under brand new carpet!! So that was when I realized I knew I was screwed for DSL in the house from any of the existing internal wiring. The NID splitter was an answer, I bought an external box and installed it in the basement. Ran Cat5e wiring for the existing internal wiring jacks that the end user created. Ran a new piece to my computer area down here, and a new piece of wire to the NID and wired it the standard way. The NID splitter was not difficult to install and just using cat5e and keeping extra pairs on hand in case the cable gets hit was a real plus.If I ever have a tech come to this house even after I think he will appreciate the flexibility I gave him with the cables I laid down. I am going to take some pics and show my work.
Speed I ordered was 384-1536/128, $29.95/12 months, I have an efficient 5100 modem, and a linksys router. The linksys makes the network run rather smoothly with little downtime at all. Don't like the router?? install RasPPPoE. It's quick simple and only 94k space.
The only reason why I rated the Pre-Sales information a 4 was the Rep I talked to did not know about the pkgs offered, or any products. He did advise he was new to the job and hired last week. To his defense he did put in the order correctly and my install date was on track with what he told me.
Side note:
Keep in mind I am on line support here at BBR for SBC.. My successes and failures might not match what you experience. When I did my installation I did not do it the normal customer way. I did it with a built machine and used a third party software. So this review is only of my experience with dsl regardless who I work for..
12/07/03
Review I think needed updating due to DSLR/BBR still reporting my tests coming from Southwestern Bell, not ameritech. May need to question Justin about this but not sure as of yet. DSL from install to recent has been rather persistent, the NID splitter and new lines I ran have held up pretty nicely. Due to the fact of how some wires for voice were ran the NID splitter was about the only option that was going to work and work effectively for the house.
Speed tests still consistent ~1292-1479/~210-245
Update: 02/07/04-> Updated to the 1536-6016/384-608 pkg for the ongoing rate. So far so good speed test confirmed 5943/597. Cannot complain at all!!
:D
Update: 03/26/04-> Updated cost and pkg I currently have. Still cranking along, I tried a 2wire recently and not sure but I don't think it handles the 6Mbps/608 pkg quite as well as a stand alone 5260, 5360, or 5100 modems. Not sure why, my line just looks different from the 2wire to the Efficient models. But to 2wire's success I can see the bit stream and the bit stacking on the 2wire between the upstream and the down. I think this modem will come into real good use on my sister's RT based DSL ckt where she has 1536/160 service. Least then when I RAS into the machine I can see her DSL line as if I had a sunrise test set.... on site!!
Update: 09/04/04
Well... finally I had a 5360 die on me, and my 5100b died as well, the 5100b was replaced a while back. I replaced the old 5360 with the new 5100b and it died within a week. Was on my old 5600 for a while till the replacement 5100b came in, I actually broke down and called tier 1 and yes I did rather well. I was quite impressed I really expected worse, and I was looking for it too. I guess this goes to show you if you are looking for problems you might not necessarily find them. Don't get me wrong there is people here that find them just fine and I can vouch for that. As of this posting the only difference was I finally replaced the old 4 port Linksys router with a new WRT54G with the hyperWRT firmware supplied by a regular here, and the 5100b is still in operation. Besides that nothing really new to report. Speeds still at 6016/608 speeds with most speed tests ranging around 5.2-5.5Mbps down/495-593 up. All in all still done rather well, for the price and the speed.
Here is to running on and rocking on!! 
Update: 04/01/05
Got pressed to update my review again.. that thing is annoying... but none the less SSDD. 6016/768 (now). Only thing I have found so far that might be a prob is I have 2 5100a's in my possession (one my parents' and one my sister's) and it seems neither do a very good job of the high speed signal at close ranges to the office. I am wondering if this is a quirk, cause they both handle 1536/384 speeds fantastically. The other pill is the 5360 I am operating is doing just fine currently, no errors or low sync readings. I am still working on nailing down as to why those two identical modems have the same problem. I decided a few months ago to get rid of my linksys for a newer one, after that one was not worth the money spent, I tried a us robotics, then found monowall. Monowall has been very friendly and very kind for me. Also it seems that if I replace the firmware in the USR with a stock DLINK firmware it works great now. Too bad USR cannot get their own firmware right, don't feel too bad USR, neither can Linksys. Same NID splitter is in place and working just fine.
Still working fine..
06/06/06
God I almost hated typing that date 
Well the site has reminded me enough times to update this review again. That thing is almost as annoying as a pop-up. Still same wiring (Cat5e) and same splitter. Had some problems with cordless phones near the computer bench in the basement, solution: move cordless phone upstairs and away from 4 computers, wireless router and DSL modem. have a basic corded phone for my desk now. Router was moved back to m0n0wall as of recent, no need for a contraption that has bad firmware revisions, and crappy performance. Hopefully soon I will have the AP's in place to expand the network capabilities to wireless. I moved on to a 5100b (pppoe on router, not on modem) and it seems to be holding up. My dsl just works, have not really had to concentrate on it that hard.
04/18/07-
Yes it pestered me to update again, So far besides the occasional phone line outage. Which ironically the DSL was up for both times for even with the static. A bit perplexed on how my nid/sni splitter did that, but none the less the DSL was working. The power outage last year was kind of taxing. Had no power but ironically I had a spare generator that I got power to my computers and network and I had Internet. Seems like the office was still supplying power to the DSLAM. last year's power crisis I don't remember how many cell phone batteries I charged up, and access to the Internet (my own network) I passed out. I lost count with the neighbors, they were impressed I had sat service, Internet still working and phone service. Kudos to the Coleman Powermate 4000 generator as well.
11/11/08- Still have the service. still using it.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of AT&T Midwest |
|
AT&T Midwest
(35)
(58)
·
·