After getting off the phone with Qwest, it seems that my ISP was under no technical obligation to run a separate ADSL line to the house, although Qwest notes that the locale is speed-restriced for DSL to 256k, which is a pain and has made clear to me that I was running well over that speed back at the apartment.
Here’s the interesting bit; I think I could cancel my Qwest DSL entirely and just go with the new ISP and save $15 a month, especially if Qwest notes the speed restrictions are hard-wired. The outstanding question in my mind is, “Are there technical advantages to a non-separate DSL line as opposed to the new POTS line they dropped with ADSL on it? Can I get more bandwidth by lighting fewer wires?”
It seems unlikely, actually.
The next question, of course, is “Can I multiplex the lines, especially without paying for the circuit that may or may not be attached to the Qwest line?”
Of course, I should really be doing stuff like unpacking boxes instead of wrestling with ephemera such as bitstreams.
Why the speed restriction? How far are you from the CO?
I was using a dedicated line for years and my ISP finally lured me off of it to a line-shared setup for a cheaper price. I ended up with probably 3x the speed at like $10/mo less, and no real problems. The switching over was a pain, though. They accidentally killed the wrong line and disconnected my phone. Did the same thing when I was moving out and stopped the DSL but not the voice. Genius.