"VanguardLH" wrote in message ...
Sasquatch Jones wrote:

3rd time had to rewrap the OP's post. Won't bother again. If OP won't
bother to properly configure his client, I won't bother to reply.

Last night, I checked the Verizon DSL line speed again. Still 400K up
and 33K down. Then I bypassed the house completely by installing a
new phone cable at the Verizon interconnection box test phone jack
and the other end directly into the Verizon modem phone input. Same
exact speeds.

What did I learn from Verizon? Verizon DSL techs either lie or are
incompetent. And, don't ever schedule a service call after 4pm on a
holiday week.

Does Verizon steal, er, borrow the telephone lines from your local telco
to deliver their service? Or did Verizon run their own lines (on the
telco's poles)? Often the ISP uses the telco's poles and old POTS lines
so degradation of the wires requires the telco to make a fix. However,
if the telco is not your ISP then complaining to them is fruitless. If
all they provide is POTS voice service then that's all they are
responsible for.

Verizon is the phone company and the ISP. Have owned the lines for years. They are pushing everyone away from DSL to fiber optic at twice the cost. Don't need 300Mbps, but would like to get at least 500Kbps (promised DSL speed is 1.5Mbps).

Your ISP is Verizon and is the only one to whom you can complain about
the very low downstream bandwidth but they can't force the telco to fix
their POTS lines. At most, you'd have to wait until there were enough
Verizon customers in your area for Verizon to setup a hub or trunk
station that is closer to your location (the longer the travel for DSL
on the old POTS line then the more attenuation, noise, and other
problems).

Verizon techs might be able to test your effective physical distance
from their hub to your endpoint. That way you could see if you are at
the limit of their DSL support distance. You don't want to be that far
as it is the maximum distance at which they can deliver their minimal
service and not very reliably. I haven't checked into it for many years
but last time I looked it was something around 17K feet (3 miles) max
from their trunk to my service point to get their worst service.

That's the same story as the Verizonhardware techs -- it's 2+ miles from here to central office. Hardware techs are excellent, by the way. DSL techs I have seen don't understand basic data communication or wiring, but they sure do try to sell "FIOS".

See:

http://www.dslreports.com/faq/4676 and
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/vdsl3.htm

about distance with DSL. Also see:

http://www.dslreports.com/distance

which indicates at what max distance Verizon will accept customers;
however, the farther out you go then the worse the service becomes.
Complaining to your telco won't help (unless they're your ISP) but
complaining to Verizon might get them to push fixes on the old POTS
lines by the telco - but you'll be waiting a long time for those fixes
to happen.

Looks like iDSL can be handled over longer distances. If talking to
Verizon shows you are far out from their CLEC then see if they will
switch you off aDSL to iDSL service.

Thanks very much for the links! Will check them out after cable is installed.