giving dsl a try

a while back i ranted about my woes with high speed internet companies and choices.  when is a monopoly not a monopoly?  apparently when it is a utility. argh, i get frustrated thinking that i have 1 choice for electricity, 1 choice for telephone, 1 choice for gas, etc. -- argh.

anyhow, because of the cox acquisition of cableamerica and my concerns about cox services and customer service, i figured i'd jump on the opportunities presented to my by qwest dsl (higher speeds).  anyhow after some bumpy starts (i placed the order 45 days ago and it is just getting connected today.  hmmm...vision of what is to come on customer service?

anyhow, so it got connected (and i finally plugged everything in correctly -- yes, i had to open mouth, insert foot on one incident).  so here's some speed results.

i first used bandwidthplace.com for my pre-tests:

cox internet:
[using setting: cable, arizona region]
first test: 795KB/second
second test: 1.2 MB/second

then i used speakeasy.net for comparison:

cox internet:
[using los angeles location]
first test: 1215KB/second
second test: 2184KB/second

now the same tests using dsl:

qwest dsl:
[bandwidthplace.com - same settings]
first test: 2.7MB/second
second test: 3.9MB/second

[speakeasy.net - same settings]
first test: 5881KB/second
second test: 6067KB/second

wow.  i had to run a few more just for giggles...here's the results:

Download Speed: 5984 kbps (748 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 674 kbps (84.3 KB/sec transfer rate)

Download Speed: 6000 kbps (750 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 741 kbps (92.6 KB/sec transfer rate)

Download Speed: 6031 kbps (753.9 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 674 kbps (84.3 KB/sec transfer rate)

Download Speed: 5709 kbps (713.6 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 475 kbps (59.4 KB/sec transfer rate)

so it's hooked up and piped through the house now (although i have to get a dsl filter for my patch panel, which is en route)...seems to be doing fine!