[I don't know that I agree that this is off-topic...] Steve Schaefer wrote:
1) ISP's who deploy DSL are on a very slim margin. They can't afford to be "full service." That doesn't mean that the best DSL ISP's don't provide better service than the mediocre or poor DS-1 ISP's, but don't expect $500/month support for your $150/month line.
2) Data CLEC's who provide most of the lines for independent ISP's have a challenging business model. Northpoint went down hard. That doesn't mean that the others will go down hard, too, but they have the same kind of risks. They needed lots of capital and got most of it through debt financing.
Well, wasn't the big problem that the DLECs were having trouble turning around orders, and as a result ended up not getting paid by the ISPs?
3) ILEC's don't have a clue. Some of them are well-intentioned
Which ILECs? I've dealt extensively with Ameritech, although not recently. The owner of Cleveland's largest local ISP lives (and offers service) in Verizon territory (former GTE North) and has lots of "wonderful" things to say about both Verizon and Ameritech. Ameritech was fair-to-middling until being bought by SBC, and they rolled downhill rapidly after that - the only positive thing they are doing is the Project Pronto rollout. I can't say anything about Qwest or Bellsouth, as I've never dealt with them.
than CLEC DSL). CLEC's deployed equipment that puts moderate voltage on the line and no tone. ILEC techs are clueless. Note that all ILEC DSL IP ervices run over lines with dial tone...
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