From: Nico Ghilardi < >
Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 22:18:53 -0800

Hi all,

I got an overwhelming amount of very helpful hints for my questions, and
I would like to thank everybody who wrote to me. Many people brought up
suggestions and were stunned that in my location in Millbrae no DSL is
available. For those who are interested, here is a digested summary of
the information I received:

What determines whether you can get DSL is not the city you live in nor
the ZIP code nor the area code. Rather what counts is the distance
between your house and the next CO, and unfortunately my house is at
15300 ft distance, 300 ft more than is permissible for regular DSL. So
that's out, and that goes for all providers I checked (Including Covad,
Speakeasy, Earthlink and Megapath). There is an option to get a slower
version, IDSL, which runs at 144kbps both ways. But it costs between $90
and $140 a month, depending on the provider, so it is really not worth
it. The other alternatives include T1 lines (>$400 / month!) and
satellite ($80 a month and hefty installation costs). Plus, satellite is
only fast for download, as upload still goes over the phone line.
Somebody suggested Tmobile wireless access, but unless your house is
built on top of a starbucks or in an airport lobby this is unlikely to work.

So basically, I am in bad shape: I can only get lower performance than I
used to have in my old apartment, but at much higher cost. My cable
company, Comcast, also does not deliver internet access to my home, but
here comes the good news: They are building it, and it should be
available by the end of the year or so. Thus I decided to wait for a
while and have my computer download stuff during the night, when I don't
need the phone.

So thanks much again for all your help

cheers
Nico

P.S. here are a few helpful links that I received which may be of
interest to others:

http://www.dslreports.com/
http://www.rcn.com/internet/highspeed/index.php
http://www.speakeasy.net/
www.covad.com

-- 
Nico Ghilardi, Ph.D.
Molecular Biology Department
Genentech, Inc.
1-DNA Way
South San Francisco, CA 94080-4990
USA
650-225-6907 (office)
650-225-1081 (lab)
650-225-6412 (fax)
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