[lug] Cisco 675 vs 678 question

[Dave Brown]

Hi,

I recently decided to give up one of my phone lines, and because
my DSL was on a line with an obscure number, I asked Qwest if it
would be difficult to move it to the line with my well-known phone
number. No problem I was told and there would be no cost. Since I
was about to go on vacation, I asked that the change not take effect
until I returned a couple of weeks later in order that I could deal
with any problems that might arise immediately. So the day before I'm to
leave, I'm working at home when suddenly my DSL quits working. After
a half hour or so, I realize this is more than a temporary outage, so
I contact Qwest. The technician tells me that there is no
record of my phone number having DSL -- this on a line that has had
DSL from the first month it was offerred by US West. Eventually I
find out that though installation of DSL on my other line is indeed
scheduled for July 5, after I return from vacation, for some reason
my old line has been cut off 2 weeks beforehand, and that it is 
impossible to restore it at least for 72 hours. I won't recite all
the inconvenience this caused, both to me and my daughter who was
taking some internet-based college coursework. I'm more concerned
with what happened after my return.

I returned to find a package with the Intel USB DSL modem enclosed for
my new DSL connection. I knew this hardware would not work for Linux
(or for Windows 95, my dual-boot option), but I was not concerned, 
since my plan was simply to switch over the Cisco 675 that had been 
working fine on the other line for a couple of years. When I tried to 
connect the 675, however, it behaved as if the DSL was not activated. 
I called Qwest and found out that the DSL was indeed activated, but that
I now had a different kind of line (a 'DMT' line I think it is called) and
that the 675 wouldn't work. I would need to get a Cisco 678 instead, and
oh, by the way, a 678 is considered an upgrade from the
Intel USB modem, and therefore costs money -- $275 or so. Well I 
squawked about how I had been told this would be a no-cost proposition
and complained more about the premature cutoff on the other line, so 
eventually Qwest agreed to give me several months of free DSL which would
bring my net cost down to $100 or so. 

My questions after this cautionary tale are: does anyone know what the
difference between the DMT line and my old line really is? Second, 
I'm left with a perfectly good, but useless to me, Cisco 675. Could 
anyone find a use for it?
 -Dave Brown
 dbrown at ucar.edu