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.

Comments

Laws to help DSL penetration?

[MasterOfMagic]

"If you show a politician some of these numbers, this should get them into action," Rodey said.

In other words, what Mr. Rodney is trying to say is that the United States needs laws to help DSL penetration and to give DSL providers a competitive advantage in the United States. Excuse me Mr. Rodeny, isn't it your department to become competitive?

I have DSL through BellSouth, and I had to call them today because they billed me incorrectly. Two weeks ago I had to call them because I wasn't getting synch. A week before that I had to call them because something else wasn't working. (It's turned out that a BBG is down.) Yet this entire time my friend with cable didn't have to call his provider, got better speeds, and doesn't have to pay a mint to the phone company.

What am I missing? Do DSL companies not want customers? Can they not do regular network maintanence or bill correctly? It seems that cable internet providers can do all this and cheaper. Kind makes me want to switch to cable.

One major DSL problem

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

In my experience telephone lines in the Bay Area are not really suitable for reliable DSL service. A bit of weather (like last night, but not also on much milder days too) and signal quality degrades. For voice it just produces crackling on the line but it kills DSL. If I speak to Pac-Bell (or whatever name my local phone monopoly has this week) the response is simply "it's raining, that's normal". DSL runs over ordinary telephone lines which were not designed to carry high bandwidth data.

With Cable I experienced a reliable weather-independent service.

I've Used Both

[TTMuskrat]

I've used both cable modems and DSL and I have to say that I prefer DSL. I had constant mini-outages with the cable modem - ICQ up, ICQ down, ICQ back up, ICQ back down - coupled with several major network issues that kept me disconnected for long periods of time (upwards of 10-13 hours). Of course, this may be only a fault of Time Warner's service. I've yet to have any connectivity problems with my DSL.

Also, I've not noticed that "...cable modems, which in general costs about $10 less a month in the United States than DSL service does." Both my cable and my dsl cost $49.99 a month - though I did get a special on my DSL ($25 for the first 6 mo).

Re:cable IS better

[MeNeXT]

Now add to that the fact that Cable is Faster

This is like saying that a 5 lane highway is faster than a 3 lane highway. It's how many people or on that counts, and what speed limit is permited

I see no diff between the two.

Uptake slow because telco at capacity on DSL

[JeffL]

In my local area, the telco, Qwest, appears to be at capacity for providing DSL. Of the many people I have encouraged to get DSL, only those folks living in outlying cities have been able to successfully get it installed. People living here in Boulder, CO have repeatedly been told their line does not qualify, when people living in the same building already have DSL.

It always amazes me to read articles about the US lagging in DSL uptake, or the telcos not signing up as many people as they hoped, when in fact they are turning people away.

Maybe there is an explanation other than capacity, such as Qwest pulling a BT and refusing to signup people who don't request MSN as their ISP.