Herc, [and to some extent, this addresses Caxton's questions, too]
Would you describe in a little more detail what you mean by so "unreliable as to be unusable"?
I've been involved in troubleshooting network anomalies and problems for a long time. Two important things that I've learned are: (1) never to jump to conclusions, no matter how obvious circumstances seem on the surface; and, (2) never to say never, or it couldn't be.
Are you encountering busies where you didn't before? Dropped connections once you've logged on? Noticeably slower response times? Times of day problems during peak periods? Are other users in your community affected in the same way? Ask around. I'd be interested to know if your experience is unique, or widespread throughout your neigborhood/locale.
It's conceivable to me that once the ILEC provisioned for DSL, they may have done some cable "throws" [which are outside plant rearrangements or reconfigurations] to facilitate the conversions to the new higher-speed service. Or maybe some next gen DLC has been installed, leaving you on the short end of the stick. It's also possible that some back end modifications to accommodate new high speed flows from the DSLs at the router level have been modified, leaving some other resources stretched in the edge. Any of these could be responsible for inadvertently affecting the capabilities of prior services, but there would be no easy way of knowing this purely from a speculative standpoint.
The prospect of an established ILEC deliberately degrading extant services, for the sake of making the newer ones more attractive, seems remote to me, although these things do occur undeliberately. Purely from a liability standpoint, if not one of good citizenry, it would seem to me that they would continue to maintain their existing provisions. Although, sometimes subtleties surrounding decision processes during new initiatives could enter into the picture that could lead one to wonder aloud, as you are now doing.
Please provide us with more details concerning your current woes. Maybe others will contribute some thoughts along the way, as well.
Regards, Frank Coluccio |
