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To: Robert T. Miller who wrote (3075)	3/14/1999 4:17:00 PM
From: JMD	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 12823

Robert, thought I'd jump in here for a moment. I just installed DSL (384 kbs up and down)for a small office in Silicon Valley: five or six users on any given day. Service cost is $199/month + a one-time purchase of a router ($550); package waives installation/labor costs and comes with 8 IP addresses. The provider is Concentric/Covad and their service and admin people were very good to deal with, they came out as scheduled--mostly high marks (except that they're growing so fast you wind up getting 10 phone calls from different departments to double/triple confirm and follow-up but, hey, better too many calls than none at all!) Next I contracted with USWEST to install their so-called 'Megabit' service (their word for DSL) for a very small satellite office in Denver (2 users). USWEST charges for $40/mo (192 kbs up and down) and will supply the router free and waive installation charges if you sign a 12 month contract. Their people are nice but clueless--first person I spoke to maintained they didn't provide DSL, only Megabit service. Supervisor straightened that out on the 2nd call. It is clear that the USWEST people are trying to get their arms around this new product, and that its a long way from mainstream. BUT, look at the pricing differential between Denver and Silicon Valley! Have no idea what's going on unless Concentric/Covad just don't think they've got any competition to worry about in the business niche, and are content to let Pac Bell/SBC provide ADSL to the home market. Anybody have an idea? Regards, Mike Doyle

To: Robert T. Miller who wrote (3075)	3/14/1999 4:29:00 PM
From: RTev	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12823

Did US West mention a number? (Just bookmarked this interesting topic after glancing at it occasionally for months.) I've had USWest ADSL for 5 months and they're still charging "early adapter" rates on their service. It will be interesting to see how soon they lower rates and if AOL's ever-so-slow embrace of DSL affects that. Their current pricing is here: interprise.com But the $40 charge for ADSL is a bit misleading because it only pays for the line. You still need an ISP, of course. Here in Washington (and, apparently elsewhere), USWest is required to open their lines to any ISP that connects to them, so you have a choice, but I decided to go with USWest's own service which costs an additional $20/month. There's a list of ISPs offering USWest DSL here: uswest.com When I signed up, activation was free and I got the Cisco 675 router (DSL modem) and 3Com net card for free. Installation would also have been free, but I decided to do that myself (a fairly simple process) instead of wait for someone to show up at my place. One nice thing about USWest's service: They automatically supply multiple IP addresses, so all that's required to set up a little home network is to plug the ADSL router into a net hub and connect each PC into that. I've had my main NT machine running on the net at the same time as a Mac and a Linux or Win95 machine. (However, they don't officially support such a configuration, so don't expect to get any questions answered about it from their help desk.)