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DSL Rising
Steve wrote to us with an
article about the rise of DSL throughout the world. What I find most interesting is the discussion about cable vs. DSL; in the United States cable is winning, but globally, DSL holds the cake.
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That there are two main factors in this.
The first is that the US is large and other countries, for the most part, are small. Geographically speaking that is. I understand the DSL has a limited range and that you must be within X miles of certaint equipment in order for it to work. Cable modems don't have this limitation.
The other reason is that in america a great deal of the telephone wire (which DSL runs on) is complete crap. I went to Israel a couple years ago. The pay phones are so cool, they don't take change, only cards, and they have lcd screens. Not only that, but I was in this guys house, and I thought I saw a cat5 plug in the wall, but I was wrong. It was the telephone. Their telephone infrastructure is 1000 times more modern than ours.
That's the big problem with america. Our country is so large that in a time of rapid technological change we can't change our infrastructure fast enough to keep up with the rest of the world. It's feasable for say japan to cover its entire country in an amazing wireless network. Not so for the US. Cable modems require no new infrastructure. They just require people who already have cables coming into their house to get another wire run inside. DSL requires the phone company to update its stuff and put up new equipment.
From my experience though, DSL is cheaper, faster, and more reliable. And if your provider doesn't suck, they don't limit your bandwith.
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Most of the places around the world don't have cable like we do (large and going pass most homes), and they also have teleco companies with huge national power. SO while DSL is winning, it isnt' because it's the better choice, it's winning more by default and by the control of the marketplace by Teleco companies.
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I may be totally wrong about this, but can't cable modems use existing cable lines, where DSL needs either fiber or at least better than two-wire phone line? So it makes sense that since the USA has a fairly large existing cable infrastructure that the growth might be faster in that area.
In the case of my area (Salem, Oregon, an hour south of Portland), cable was much more readily available to a larger subscriber area than DSL was, at least at the time we first subscribed. Plus DSL was more expensive at that time as well.
is because the U.S is NOT densly populated. For example, Europe is extremely dense in population thus make DSL an easy choice with many people close to the relay stations (within 3 miles). Where as in the U.S. you have mountains, deserts, artic tundra where lower population live so they must use cable.
Also, much of Europe and Asia use satelite for television so people don't have the option to use the exist co-ax that is running into their homes as almost all have in the U.S (for Internet access).
This all goes back to why Europe and Asia are ahead of the U.S in mobile phones. To cover the population of lets say Japan, with relay towers is relatively simple because of the dense population. Thus making new technology easily upgradable (for relay towers) because they don't need as many and they are not spread over long distances.
Funny, my experience with Cable is the exact opposite of yours. If I had the choice right now I'd switch to DSL in a heartbeat. Many times the Cable/DSL debate comes down to the quality of the provider, not one technology being better than the other.
.. from cable to DSL. The only thing thats keeping me? The contract.
With cable, I can drop them any time I feel like it. With DSL, I have to sign at least a 1 year contract. Then there's the issue of the bandwidth caps.
I'd gladly give up any instance of having TWC at the house. I could get DSL for easily $15 cheaper/month but won't for these two reasons.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
Too bad capitalism is keeping the broadband market f**ed up.
Capitalism? Capitalism only works if companies have to compete for customers.
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What's the problem? The product is available and more people sign up every year. Wait a few years, and everybody with disposable income who wants a fast Internet connection will have one.
What the telcos are really whining about is competition. They want the third-party providers, like Covad, to go away, so they can have a protected monopoly with unregulated prices.
As a college student, I have lived in numerous places and have had first-hand experience with 3 different cable connections (Adelphia, Cox, and Comcast), and 4 different DSL providers (Covad, Sprint FastConnect, Verizon, and my current provider - Cavalier Telephone). In every single case, DSL has been the most reliable and consistent connection for me. First of all, I do not understand how the $10 cheaper price for cable makes any sense. Cable is actually $5-$10 more expensive for people who aren't already cable subscribers. For us people with DirecTV - paying the cable companies is something we find insulting. Second - uptime. Cable service in my area (northern virginia) has a tendency to go out more often than the electricity. Thunderstorms are a 99% guarantee of downtime with cable modem service for us. Even if there is a network outage, I almost never see a DSL sync drop out, even during heavy storms. Third - bandwidth consistency. Adelphia offered me 3Mbps. Guess what, I was lucky to get 512Mbps even on a Sunday afternoon. I would honestly take a 768kbps DSL connection over a 1.5Mbps cable connection that wasn't consistent. Of course, all of these are related to my personal experience, and I cannot speak for anyone else. I'm sure there are plenty of people with crappy DSL service and excellent cable providers. However, that has not been the case in the DC area for myself. And the PPPoE argument is pointless. Get yourself a Linksys router and you won't know the difference anyways.
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I don't buy all these "we're too thinly populated" excuses from America. Canada isn't any more heavily industrialized than America, and yet our DSL providers are *way* ahead of yours.
I think the heart of it is something in the culture and management of the respective telco industries in each country. Canadian telco's embraced DSL as their future, and worked hard to have the infrastructure in place. In Canada ILEC's are forced to share their back ends with third party DSL providers, and so far they haven't resorted to dirty tricks.
In the US, it sounds like they're dragging their feet, and crying loudly about not wanting to share their lines. Not only that, but it sounds like a lot of your copper is pretty crappy (rain taking out DSL service??, never heard of it up here), and your CO's spread thinly - I'm guessing that it's a result of "cheapest at all costs" operating methods.
There are 48, yes forty-eight, different DSL providers in Toronto. I've got 3500 kbps DL and 800 kbps UL for $70 CDN per month, available to over 30% of Canada's population, growing all the time. More than half of Canada has access to 1200/160 DSL service. And my Mom will have access to DSL in RURAL SASKATCHEWAN (one town of 1000 people every 20 miles) in two years.
You need to quit making excuses, and start screaming at your corporate and governmental "masters" for better results.
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