[geeks] DSL in Portland, Oregon

[Eric Dittman]

> At 11:26 AM 1/1/02 -0800, you wrote:
> >On Mon, 2001-12-31 at 05:18, Ross Alexander wrote:
> > > A friend of mine in Portland, Oregon got switched from US West DSL to
> > > Qwest to MSN. He's not to happy 'cause amoung other things they're
> > > trying to force him to use Outlook for email.
> > >
> > > Anyone have a recommendation for a good DSL provider in that part of the
> > > world?
> 
> Um, your friend is screwed.
> 
>   if he checks, he will notice that he is no longer the "customer of 
> record" for his DSL line, MSN is, he can't make ANY changes to his 
> connection, if he wants to switch providers, he has to get MSN to 
> disconnect him then get himself reconnected with a local ISP. there are 
> reports of people having to just completely disconnect their phone service 
> for a month and have it reconnected just so they can switch ISP's (this was 
> from a qwest service rep I talked to last night at a party...)

This turns out to be common with DSL service.  Most people go through an
ISP that gets the DSL line set up for them.  This is helpful for the
customer in the beginning, but it is most helpful for the ISP since they
control the DSL line and not the customer.

When I found out my old ISP was going out of business (fortunately a
disgruntled tech spilled the beans 60 days early) I tried to switch.
When I contacted Verizon I found out that *I* don't control the DSL
service since it was set up by the ISP, even though it is *MY* line.
The tariffs also required a 30 day absence of DSL service on the line
before I could have new DSL service set up.

What I did was get the new DSL service on my other phone line, then
had the name service moved.  Once that was all in place I contacted
the new ISP that bought out the old ISP and cancelled my service.

What's really funny is, three months later, the old DSL service is
still active.  I'm not getting charged, either, as I cancelled the
credit card that was being charged to avoid the hassle.
-- 
Eric Dittman
dittman at dittman.net
Check out the DEC Enthusiasts Club at http://www.dittman.net/