RE: [ba-poker] Dependable Internet connection?

["Dave Horwitz" <dhorwitz(deleted the rest)>]

It shouldn't happen. 

Where (and how) was the failure?

Did you lose your DSL signal? Should be a LED
on the modem, card, etc. Did your browser work
for example? If it was a local problem (between
you and SBC's DSL equipment you should file a 
trouble ticket and try to escalate each time it
re-occurs.

Was it a time-out due to slow response but you
were still connected (to the internet)? DSL is
not a "shared media" like cable. With cable they
will statistically provision resources. Everything
works fine except in the worst case load. For example
if there were to be an earthquake there is a good
chance that *everybody* logs on to download the 
very large map and you would expect cable to get
*very* slow. If your connection gets very slow
with DSL it can indicate a problem with the provider's
local equipment. There is always the chance that 
there is a problem with your local wiring or equipment
too. Again, file a trouble ticket and try to escalate
each time it happens. First line support only get
notifications of major outages when they occur and
will probably not go looking to see if there was 
a problem "last Wednesday around 10pm". They also
don't usually have all the diagnostics turned on
for every line/subscriber all the time.

In the case of timeout there is also a chance that
the problem is a bit further away from you. Maybe
still in the provider's equipment/network or somewhere
in the internet.  Major internet router goes down
and alternate route routers get congested (rare, but
it happens).

There is no reason to believe that cable will be
more reliable than DSL as far as connectivity
goes. There is reason to believe that your bandwidth
will vary (possibly greatly) with cable where it
should be constant all the time with DSL -- generally
they have sufficient resources behind the local 
equipment where there is contention. Personally
I would always choose DSL as long as the bandwidth/speed
I get is sufficient. Cable will give you a potentially
larger pipe but there can/will be a high variance.

I'm in the South Bay and over 2 years have only had
one 3-4 week period where there were problems with
my SBC DSL. Mis-wired at the termination of their 
wiring at my house. I had changed my configuration 
inside my house which exacerbated/exposed the 
problem on their side.

Side note:

You are in SF/Bay Area/California... LITIGATION!
Sue them for your potential loss. Only in California.
Surely you could attract some big time lawyer willing
to press a high visibility, precedence setting case.
Average Joe might have lost thousands playing poker
on the internet due to his service provider's connection
failure. Poker is big now. Internet poker is big and
controversial. Good chance of national publicity and
impact.  On the other hand you might only get a portion
of your DSL payment for the month refunded...

-Quick

owner-ba-poker(deleted the rest) wrote:
> I think that third was 4K, second 6.6K and 
> first 11K, I can't help but wonder what might have been.
> 
> Needless to say, I'd like to find a high-speed connection
> that's a little more dependable. A friend with cable says 
> his has gone out at times during tournaments, though I 
> haven't talked to him about it lately.
> Does anyone else have this problem with SBC DSL, should 
> I get my equipment checked, is there any other provider 
> who's reliable? At this point I'd take someone who's seamlessly
> on 99% of the time but is unavailable for like a two-hour
> stretch sometime during the week than someone who's 
> spotty several times an hour late at night.