Why does Wrightwood have DSL? (Trivia)

[SkierBob]

Wrightwood wasn't lucky to be one of the first communities in the area to have DSL - We worked the system very hard to accomplish our goal!

That's actually a hec of an accomplishment.  Proof the sweaky wheel gets the grease   

Prior to my current ISP connection I had a ISDN 2B +D installed in the early 90's.  ISDN typically provides a maximum of 128 kbit/s upload and download.  At the time it was basically twice as fast as dial-up.

[Wrightwood]

Yep, still have the two phone lines that were from my ISDN 128 kbit/s prior to DSL.
That was also back in the days when you received email it was from someone you knew and anyone who had a long signature line was considered to be abusing bandwidth.

[WWDREAMN]

can we try this tactic again to get fios or maybe community wireless?

[Wrightwood]

After 15 years, 1 month and 29 days since the 1st DSL connection in Wrightwood it's great to announce that Fiber Broadband is coming to town soon.

How about Fiber directly to the home/business at 1 Gbps upload and 1 Gbps download speeds, with no cap, unlimited and no installation fee.

[joemsosa]

Any idea of cost John?

[Wrightwood]

Joe,
It looks like Residential should be $70 month - Bundled with Voice $95

Activation and installation (all types): Waived
Modem charge: No monthly residential equipment fee
Voice service includes unlimited calling in United States and Canada

[joemsosa]

Sounds attractive and affordable.

[TimG]

Before I saw the pricing, my wife and I were trying to figure out what we'd pay for this service.  Now I'm not going to say! 

[RennMan]

The issue will still be phone access during times of emergency.  I don't mind bundling Voice and Internet, we do it now with Verizon.  However, there still is the issue of when the power goes out, so does Internet, and therefore an internet-carried phone service.

POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) lines are powered from the central office (in our case, the CO in the center of the village), so if that building has power or back up power, so will the phone lines.

[ad astra]

So do we know is going to be the provider for this new service? Never mind - I just read the 1 Gb thread and found my answer.

[Wrightwood]

I agree - At this point in time there's no way we'd get rid of a landline due to emergencies

[Wrightwood]

So do we know is going to be the provider for this new service?

 See this topic:

[AvocadoFlyer]

Looks like Ultimate Internet Access (UIA).  According to Google (so it must be true) they have been in business since 1996.  I still want to keep my landline since we seem to have all sorts of power outages here in WW.  But the 1GB is really tempting.  I may just have to pony up the $70 and try it out.  Wonder when this will REALLY happen!?

[ad astra]

Personally, I'm not ready to make a change - my average of 2.7 Mbps is adequate for my needs (although woefully substandard according to today's technology). I do wonder if and hope that the new service will free up some of Verizon's DSL connections for people who keep getting told there is a waiting list or that they can't get service at their particular location. That would be very nice.

[TimG]

Well, my DSL connection will become available the moment this new service is up and running, that's for sure!  And it's only DSL and not phonelines themselves that are limited, so every person who switches will be a new slot open for anyone still settling for Verizon.

[Wrightwood]

Have you ever wondered why Wrightwood has DSL and many large cities still do not have the service ?

It's because of a web page, a lot of emails and determined people.

A friend contacted GTE (now Verizon) and got in touch with a person responsible for setting up new services in the High Desert. (It should be noted that at that time only one location in the High Desert had DSL - Apple Valley, as DSL was still being tested) He was told that if a number of people requested the service it would help in future efforts to have service available.

It should also be pointed out that Wrightwood's phone system has had a poor history to say the least. We were one of the very last towns to be upgraded from a relay switching system. In the early 80's only a couple of fax machines were in Wrightwood. The two I'm aware of were at 1st Interstate Bank and the one my business had. The phone connections in Wrightwood were so noisy that every 3rd or 4th fax connection was dropped off due to bad connections.   

Back to the DSL story: On Aug 10,1999 the web page below was setup and sent to everyone we knew, requesting their assistance. Each person was asked to send a quick email to GTE requesting DSL service to be established in Wrightwood.

Mar 1,2000 GTE accepted the first order for DSL service in Wrightwood.
On Mar 15,2000 the first 2 DSL connections in Wrightwood were online, while Cities like Anaheim hadn't even been considered for DSL.

DSL service in Wrightwood has been very stable since first coming online and we've only had a handful of outages that affected the entire town.

http://www.wrightwoodcalif.com/DSL/wwdsl.htm

The original web page remains online as a tribute to those people who helped get DSL in Wrightwood. Only the contact name and his email address have been changed.

[Wrightwood]

Amazing that Wrightwood has had DSL for over 16 years and now getting 1gb Fiber 

[Cheapskate]

Companies pick their fights.  Wrightwood has DSL because the cable company's infrastructure is (was?) even worse.  I have relatives in other states where it's the reverse, no DSL because everyone buys it from the cable company.