Why is DSL so hard to get? I mean, I live in the suburbs, and I'm well within DSL range, but actually getting it the way I want it seems to require a secret handshake or something that I don't possess. What I want is easy: ADSL, at least 768 down and 256 up, a static address, and the ability to run servers. Not exactly rocket science. Speakeasy, for one, would love to sell it to me. Except they can't. Verizon tells Covad that I'm living outside of ADSL range. Even though I have two COs within a mile of my house. Even though Verizon itself sells me ADSL. Even though my former neighborhood DSL installer claims that I'm an easy 5-6,000 feet to the CO south of my house, apparently Covad thinks I'm wired to the CO north of my house, so they can't touch me.

I've been using Verizon DSL for over a year now, and they're not as bad as they could be, but they're an ILEC, so that's not saying much. They're routinely down for a couple hours at a time, they charge through the nose for static IP addresses (I could pay half as much for twice the speed, if I could cope with dynamic addresses and no servers). I used to have Speakeasy, because I believed them when they said all I could get was IDSL at $90/month for 144 kbps each way.

From the look of things, I could get Speakeasy to sell me 1.5/256 for $60 month if I could just get Verizon to fix their database, or at least explain why they can sell me DSL but Covad can't, even though they're both in the same CO.