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i had a few criteria for picking an internet service provider for dsl. first, the isp couldn't be national or larger. it's my general perception that large isps are more likely (perhaps they're less likely in fact) to oversell bandwidth and to have less customer service. second, the isp would have to provide me with classless internet domain routing. this means i would be allocated a small ("sub-class-c") block of static ip addresses. my third requirement (not a concern with dsl) is having full-time unmetered service.
although there are now at least two telcos who provide dsl circuits, i arbitrarily chose pacbell. i was on the phone with them anyways ordering my pots line so i decided to order the dsl circuit as well. not only did pacbell get the ball rolling for dsl, they also spawned the order with my isp to get connectivity. they also split the total installation costs (both pots and dsl circuits) over the first three months' bills.
i had a pretty good pacbell experienced; for the woman at pacbell, this was her first dsl order. i was patient with her and she was very pleasant to work with. the staff at pacbell worked with me, letting me fax in signatures and paging me when they needed to ask me something.
direct network access, inc. was my isp of choice. they charge me an extra $10/month for a /27 subnet. working with their staff to get my domainname and ip assignments taken care of was very clumsy and my ticket stalled in their system a few times. opening a new ticket rekindled the flame and they got things done.
installation day came. the pacbell installer was an hour late. the pots circuit wasn't ready when he got there and my roommate's pots line wasn't correct. the installer worked with the apartment's facilities staff and got both our pots lines straightened out, installed, and working. then he installed the dsl hardware. he was pretty clean about it. we booted the dsl "modem". it didn't come up the first time so he made a few phone calls and got it working. my first connection over the dsl was an ftp to ftp.cdrom.com; it clocked in at about 35Kbytes/sec. i was a happy camper.
life with dsl is good. i've quickly become
accustomed to the speed and latency. i average about
20Kbytes/s on the faster websites. two people can very
comfortably surf the web simultaneously.. i would
estimate that it would be acceptable for 3 or 4
simultaneous users with decent speed. it feels
about the same speed as surfing from work. sometimes
i double up on ftp transfers and i've seen
throughput reported just above 45/sec. joy.
my only worry now is if my isp oversells its bandwidth. i know a tiny little isp with awesome staff about 6 blocks from my house; i will most definitely come back to them if dnai gives me any trouble. :)