Specifications

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tech support both by phone and by Web;

although the reps were polite and ulti-

mately helpful, they weren’t always quick.

Once we finally got online, our download

speeds were excellent, ranging from 1,859

to 1,972 Kbps.—CM

SBC Yahoo! DSL

Basic account, $29.95 per month; full-speed account,

$39.95. Yahoo! Inc. and SBC Internet Services.

http://sbc.yahoo.com.

SBC Yahoo! aims to be a major

player, with aggressive pricing for

basic DSL accounts (up to 384 Kbps for

downloads and 128 Kbps upstream). But

better-than-average reader satisfaction for

rates is not enough; the service racks up

four worse-than-average scores—for tech-

nical support, connection speed, e-mail

service, and likelihood to recommend.

All necessary gear (including a net-

work interface card) comes free with a

one-year commitment. SBC Yahoo! sup-

plies its own browser, messenger, and

parental-control software. It also pro-

vides 11 e-mail accounts, with an impres-

sive 25MB of storage space for the main

mailbox and 10MB for each of the

others—the most any service offers. Still,

SBC Yahoo! gets a worse-than-average

score for satisfaction with e-mail service.

SBC Yahoo! actually solicited our test-

ing household, with two representatives

calling in one month. When we finally said

“go,” SBC Yahoo! treated us to an auto-

mated thank-you call the next day and the

installation package one day after that.

SBC Yahoo! supplies an auto-run CD

with instructions to install the DSL line

filter, connect the terminal adapter to the

line and computer, and begin. The one bit

of trouble—a modem light that wouldn’t

light—was solved by the on-disc trouble-

shooter. After more than half an hour of

software installation (and 125MB of hard

drive space), the program let us choose a

user name and password, and we were

online. Transmission speed was disap-

pointing—about 152 Kbps downstream.

One downside: You must install the

SBC Yahoo! browser software to get start-

ed (once you’re online, your old browser

and e-mail still work). Uninstalling the

SBC Yahoo! software is a step-by-step

nightmare. Tech support was fast, friend-

ly, and wrong. The rep tried to be helpful,

but his depth of training (or authority)

was thin and he had to make referrals for

simple issues.

One big annoyance: Just 5 minutes after

the first log-on, the first pop-up instant-

message ad appeared—advertising a pop-

up blocker. After we ditched all the SBC

Yahoo! software, we found the service

much more satisfactory.—Winn L. Rosch

Verizon DSL

$34.95 per month. Verizon, www.verizon.com.

Verizon, like SBC Yahoo!, aims for

cost-conscious consumers. The

phone company comes a bit closer to get-

ting it right. Both ISPs score better than

average for customer satisfaction with

pricing. But unlike SBC, Verizon manages

to do an acceptable job on just about

everything else, scoring just one “worse

than average” to SBC’s four. Throughput-

conscious users beware, however: The

one low score is for connection speed.

This largely unexceptionable showing

puts Verizon squarely in the middle of the

pack, with a C, up from last year’s C-. The

service provides users with a broad pack-

age of tools, including an antispam utility,

antivirus and parental-control tools, and a

personal firewall, most of the benefits

coming through the included MSN 8 soft-

ware. Nine e-mail accounts with 30MB of

storage space each round out the offering.

Though we had some difficulty setting

up Verizon’s service, we found its down-

load speeds fairly high—usually in the

low to mid 700s. (Our satisfaction here is

atypical, judging by our survey results.)

We paid a nonrefundable $12.95 in ship-

ping and handling fees when we ordered

the installation package, but our first two

months of service were discounted to

$29.95 (the first month is free).

When the installation pack arrived at

our test home, three days after we ordered

them, we weren’t immediately able to ac-

cess the Internet. The modem has two

means of connection to a PC—an Ethernet

port and a USB port—and though we were

connected via Ethernet cable, the service’s

software kept trying to access the modem

through the USB wireless card installed on

our machine. The second machine we

tried lacked the minimum hardware to run

the service. We were successful on a third

machine, but only after again calling tech

support for help.

That first time we called, at 7:00 on a

weekday evening, we had to hold 30 min-

utes before a rep picked up the phone.

When we called on three other occasions

to test tech support, the reps picked up