[Techtalk] More on DSL and Bell South's refusal to support Linux

[Gil Weber]

Hi, everyone. Thanks for all the responses to Judith's posting about
our search for DSL service in South Florida and my frustrating dealings
with ("Lin-ux? What's that?") BellSouth.

Several of the responses (some off-list) have suggested that we forget
BellSouth and seek DSL from another provider. Ah, there's the problem.

What was not stated in the original posting is that we're on fibre
optic lines and nobody else I've talked to provides service on fibre
optic. They'll only service copper wires. So, for example, Direct TV DSL
is happy to provide us Linux support but they can't give us signal
unless we have copper. Same with Earthlink. I asked both Direct TV DSL
and Earthlink if they could suggest a provider that serviced fibre optic
lines but neither could help me.

I've searched dslreports.com. As of yet I have not found one that both
supports Linux and services fibre optic lines. 

So ultimately we may be stuck with BellSouth trying to configure the
DSL ourselves. That may not be insurmountable, but we also just heard
that BellSouth's DSL speed is only equivalent to and ISDN and not nearly
as fast as an ADSL line. :o(  

Major disappointment.

If anyone has other helpful suggestions they're very welcome. :o)

Thanks
Gil