Embarq Extended Reach High Speed Internet

[BubbaJr]

Hi Guys,

I just received a letter from Embarq, my local phone carrier, that this new high speed service is now available to our house out in the sticks. I tried to find some info about it on the internet, but I couldn't find very much. I am assuming that it is DSL with a signal booster, since we are too far from the local phone office for standard DSL.

Have any of you used this service? If so, how was the service? Would you recommend it?

Thanks,
Joe

 

[Chuck52]

Joe,

I'm with CenturyTel, and my place just got DSL access about a year ago. I bet they just added a new sub-station near you, or did whatever upgrade to their lines was required to make DSL available in your area. CenturyTel is advertising DSL for $9.95/month, but the small print says that's as part of a bundle. I'm interested, because we already have extra services in our phone plan, so we may qualify for the bundle price without too many added charges. On the other hand, I'll bet I find that I have to pay more then that to get the service. I'm probably going to wait until after the holidays to check it out.

Chuck

 

[PlumCrazy814]

I use embarq DSL and it works fine (Actually ADSL). You pay based on the connection rate you want. bundled, ours is about $40/month. Which is about what I was paying for a second line and dialup before (after figuring taxes in).

I run four to six PC's off of the line using a wired/wireless router.

These are my connection stats:

WAN Port Statistics:
Link Status: Up
Upstream Speed: 768 kbps
Downstream Speed: 3520 kbps

 

[dmccarty]

We have Embarq DSL but not what you mention. Its ok. Service is up and down though. Usually comes back after a few minutes. We can go months without a problem then we will have daily outages. The outages might last a minute or an hour. We have replaced the modem numerous times. At least once a year. We have the the computers and network equipment on multiple UPSes. The UPS beep when we have a power hit. We can hear them beep and then hear thunder during storms. Kinda wierd. But the modems still get fried sometimes.

We are litterally at the end of the line. Even with the problems its better than no Internet. We have had at least one squiral nest in the phone box which caused some problems. If we ever get wireless access we will consider it seriously. To be fair to Embarq, TimeWarner was not much better when we had access through them back in the city.

Later,
Dan

 

[BubbaJr]

What is ADSL? Is it some kind of enhanced signal?

Thanks,
Joe

 

[BubbaJr]

Joe,

I'm with CenturyTel, and my place just got DSL access about a year ago. I bet they just added a new sub-station near you, or did whatever upgrade to their lines was required to make DSL available in your area. CenturyTel is advertising DSL for $9.95/month, but the small print says that's as part of a bundle. I'm interested, because we already have extra services in our phone plan, so we may qualify for the bundle price without too many added charges. On the other hand, I'll bet I find that I have to pay more then that to get the service. I'm probably going to wait until after the holidays to check it out.

Chuck

Hi Chuck,

Whatever they are going to do, they haven't done it yet. I quote from the letter.

"To allow for better service delivery, orders will be collected prior to the installation of this new technology. Orders will be accepted in your area for a very limited time. All orders must be received prior to 1/10/09."

I'm thinking they are fishing for subscribers before they will commit to this service. Wouldn't be the first time the phone company has told me something that turned out not to be true.

Thanks,
Joe

PS. On a good day my dial up speed will be 31.2 Kbps. You can see why I am interested in something faster.

 

[jinjimbob]

What is ADSL? Is it some kind of enhanced signal?

DSL is usually short for ADSL or ADSL2+.

You are most likely connected to a remote terminal for your area. The remote terminal telephone cabinet is usually connected to the main town office via fibre.

 

[BubbaJr]

DSL is usually short for ADSL or ADSL2+.

You are most likely connected to a remote terminal for your area. The remote terminal telephone cabinet is usually connected to the main town office via fibre.

Hi JinJimBob,

I'm so far out in the sticks that we are still on copper wire all the way to the local office. I just got off the phone with the salesgirl and she talked me into trying it. They will change out the existing coil in the tower at the road for a "smart coil" that will magically transform my crappy phone line into a super smart data transmission line capable of going from my present 31.2 Kbps to the astounding speed of 382K up and 768K down - guaranteed. She didn't try to explain it to me, but the only way I can see that happening is if they are superimposing a radio signal over top of the regular electricity in the phone line. Possibly similar to model railroad DCC (digital command control) where they do the same to control a decoder in the engine. Of course I may be completely off base and there could be a new technology that I'm completely unaware of. According to her this is something that is available for the first time through Embarq. I asked her if there was any info on the net about it, and she said that it's so new that they don't have anything on the internet yet.

With the price I'm paying for a 2nd phone line + the charge for internet access, it will be close to breaking even after I drop the other phone line and the other access. I've been looking for a faster way to surf every since we moved up here, hopefully this is it.

We set up an installation date of March 4th, so I'll let all of you know how it turns out after I use it.

I was just thinking, one of the many repairmen that have worked on my crappy phone line over the past 6 1/2 years mentioned something about a coming technology that would give me great internet speed, I'll bet this is what he was talking about.

Joe, with a smile on his face.

 

[EmbarqJoey]

Hi Guys,

I just received a letter from Embarq, my local phone carrier, that this new high speed service is now available to our house out in the sticks. I tried to find some info about it on the internet, but I couldn't find very much. I am assuming that it is DSL with a signal booster, since we are too far from the local phone office for standard DSL.

Have any of you used this service? If so, how was the service? Would you recommend it?

Thanks,
Joe

Joe,

Glad to see you got the Extended Reach Offer. The rep was correct when stating the older coils were being replaced with a new "smart" coil. The smart coil basically adds about 5k feet to standard loop lengths. We've gotten some great results from this offer. Try googling "smart coils" and you can find some interesting information.

Please let me know if theres anything I can do to help. My email is Embarq_Joey@embarq.com. You can check me out on DSL Reports.com and Twitter to verify my identity.

Twitter / Embarq_Joey.

Thanks!

Joey H.
Embarq Reach Out
reachout@embarq.com

 

[Chuck52]

Joe,

Glad to see you got the Extended Reach Offer. The rep was correct when stating the older coils were being replaced with a new "smart" coil. The smart coil basically adds about 5k feet to standard loop lengths. We've gotten some great results from this offer. Try googling "smart coils" and you can find some interesting information.

Please let me know if theres anything I can do to help. My email is Embarq_Joey@embarq.com. You can check me out on DSL Reports.com and Twitter to verify my identity.

Twitter / Embarq_Joey.

Thanks!

Joey H.
Embarq Reach Out
reachout@embarq.com

Well now....that's kinda frightening. Like the first time the pizza guy asked me if I didn't want to change my order to the vegetarian since my last cholesterol reading was so high.

Chuck