| May 23, 2000 | 02 07 01 61 00052301 |
Mrs. Mildred A. Welch
Secretary
mwelch@lillick.com
Business Department I,
Lillick & Charles
Two Embarcadero Center, Suite 2600
San Francisco, CA 94111
| Subject: | Evaluation DSL |
Dear Millie,
Thanks for your memo submitting Peter Campbell's heads up on PacBell's DSL service. For $40 per month, the PacBell service seems like a bargain for high speed access, considering that prices ranged from $170 per month and installation was quoted at upwards of $300 just 6 months ago.
Our short experience using Pac Bell DSL (hereafter PBD), may be of some help, in showing that PBD has been much more reliable than dial-up ISPs. We have experienced no actual loss of service over the past 4 weeks since starting to use the service. With our two dial-up services, outages have occurred several times a week over the past several years.
PBD transmission is much faster than dial-up services. This is particularly helpful for us in uploading SDS records to deliver "intelligence" via the Internet.
However, approximately 20% to 30% of the time downloading is slowed by traffic to a particular server. If a lot of people are trying to access the same stuff at the same time, say for example to download a program upgrade from Microsoft, or upgrade virus protection, access is slowed, causing the same long wait that occurs with dial-up service. This translates into caution about relying on the Internet and an off-site server as a substitute for direct access and control over your own information using your own personal PC and LAN to get the work done day-today.
Additionally, experience using PBD shows another issue that impacts daily productivity.
It seems to turn out that using PBD throughout the day, causes "capacitors" to "overload," which gradually slows and eventually stops transmission. The only remedy Pac Bell has proposed so far, is to shut down the computer and turn off the router (another word for an external modem that plugs into a network card in the computer), for about 2 minutes, then start everything up again. I notice this degradation of performance maybe 2 or 3 times over a 24 hour day, so in a normal 8 hour work day, it might occur once or twice, depending upon the level of use. It is not clear whether this problem is only, or mainly, for random access accounts. A business might be more likely to have a static account, which may be less susceptible to this problem. Pac Bell's phone message to customers, who call for technical support, does not differentiate between dynamic and static access accounts, in explaining this problem and the remedy of shutting down for 2 minutes.
If a lot of people share a single router, as occurs in a business, this could be a larger problem such that capacitors overload more quickly, and so people have to shut down more often to clear the problem, unless possibly you make a deal for more expensive equipment. There are actually two routers involved. One that connects to your computer or LAN distribution hub, and another in the Pac Bell Central Office that services your account. Turning off your computer and turning the router off, evidently clears the router in the Central Office.
Experience seems to further show that it is not necessary to shut the computer down and turn the router off for 2 minutes in order to restore performance.
Simply booting the computer, seems to be adequate, most of the time.
Of course doing this 2 or 3 times a day wastes time and is an annoyance to get the benefit of the bargain for DSL service. Since there was no disclosure of this performance issue by Pac Bell in its advertising and explanation of the service by marketing reps, somebody might file an action against PacBell to get a reduction in price or compel upgrading of their equipment.
Additionally, as Peter reports, we, also, expended considerable effort to assist Pac Bell in getting us connected.
Much of our problem was because Pac Bell does not yet officially support Windows 2000, which we are using. Considerable time was needed to coordinate Pac Bell resources, and assist them in developing the expertise to accomplish the work. In our case it took an extra week. There have been reports that some customers wait weeks and months to get connected.
Again, this is mainly a management issue. It requires a lot of time being on hold waiting to contact very busy people, who are overworked trying to create an installed base that justifies the low rate they are charging. Pac Bell reported that SDS records helped their staff understand problems, and take appropriate action, rather than simply route the call to another department so they can answer the next call. Of course writing up SDS records takes time, and it is not fun being on hold for an hour or so.
Thanks again for the heads up.
Sincerely,
THE WELCH COMPANY
Rod Welch
rowelch@attglobal.net