Slashdot Mirror
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.
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
No, not quick enough.....is this why people get DSL?
But they're national network only solutions. Local ISPs have no real broadband alternative available to them yet.
Hopefully 802.11(x) will allow the little guys to compete.
"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
-Marilyn Manson
Wireless seems to be getting better and better all the time. Now that the hardware and software actually work well, this little ISP (that I work for) is actually able to provide a decent service without having to go throught he monopolistic phone company or the incompetent cable co...
For those of you who noticed that the submitter is dyslexic, the article is really about LSD, not DSL.
And of course LSD is beating out Cable. There's just no comparison in the forms of wholesome entertainment.
"Many legislators believe faster Web access can make people more productive at their jobs and help increase the gross domestic product . . ."
Unfortunately, I think that they don't take into account what a small proportion of those people would religiously read slashdot.
Thats funny.... Steve wrote to us with an article about the rise of DSL throughout the world. Is this why they I am losing my Directv Dsl so others can use it throughtout the world??
NO! NO! Please don't mod me, I'm too young to die a troll. *click* Oh the pain, the pain...
I would prefer DSL over cable but alas I cannot get either. Too far for DSL and even though I have access to digital cabel they don't offer cable internet. Wireless is not an option, trees int he way. And Satellite has limits on downloading (169MB in 8 hours!) I'm stuck with 56K woe is me
http://www.bookforce.net
I've had ADSL for a couple of months now, and I love it. It's very reliable and the speed is always consistent - which is about the complete opposite of what many Dutch cable-internet providers are selling.
I hate to say it, but i had DSL installed 2 months ago and had continual headaches with it.... between loosing connectivity due to crappy PPOE software, inability to host web services on the line for the same reason, pain in the ass phone filters all over my house and other various odities i became frustrated.
Now add to that the fact that Cable is Faster and works invisibly to my machine (DHCP) gives me an accesable IP and has no additional hardware (phone filters) yada yada yada.... Why WOULD i want DSL...
i opted out of DSL for cable within a month an have never been happier
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?
It is time to go back to your roots and fight the temptation to obtain more bandwidth. See my sig.
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
"; in the United States cable is winning, but globally, DSL holds the cake."
Ahem...Takes the cake, TAKES the cake, what a wordsmith.
If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
I guess equal than, lesser than symbols don't get posted. Let me rephrase from Pascal to Java:
For some reason != US goes in a different technological direction than == US. It's usually equivilent, but parallel advances.
I still can't get either-or in my little podunk redneck town. Sucks being the only geek in the county. Whichever becomes available first, I'm going to jump on with reckless abandon. And I pray that it's Cable. I've seen both in action (Verizon DSL and Adelphia PowerLink), and Cable, for my needs, is the easy way to go.
Now, if those corporate control freaks would just get off their keisters and hardwire my town, I could pay their salaries...
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
That's nice, but for those of us still in the boonies (I connect at 24kbps on my 56 modem, due to phone line quality) who will never see cable or DSL, what kind of alternatives are there? Wireless is a no-go (no LOS to a good point for a central AP), satellite sucks for gaming (which is my killer app for bandwidth), so I guess I have to wait for my neighbors to realize that they too need a fast connection - then we can form a Network Neighborhood with a leased line and wireless with coffee can antennas.
"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.
Many areas of the US can't get DSL service due to their distance from the phone company central office. So they are left with no choice but to get cable, if it's availible.
I fell into this category, as even though DSL was availible in my town (a suburb outside of NYC), I was wayyyy too far from the central office to get DSL. Only just recently did my local cable supplier begin offering broadband.
In smaller countries with more concentrated populations, more people live within the appropriate distance from the central office. Hence the larger amount of people with DSL service.
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.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
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.
http://www.hawknest.com/
With Cable I experienced a reliable weather-independent service.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
in the United States cable is winning, but globally, DSL holds the cake.
I'm still giggling over this, and I have no idea why it's so funny. "Holds the cake?" Where did THAT expression come from? I suppose if the shoe were on the other hand, I'd have just turned the other chin, 'cause I hate to kick a man while he's spitting into the wind. But a closed mouth gathers no foot, so I'll say my two scents' worth and walk off into the sunspot.
Considering MY DSL provider just tanked.
;-)
Thanks Slashdot, for making the holidays truly happy.
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
Cable was too restrictive. Sure, the speed is better in my neck of the woods, but choice matters more to me.
With DSL, in Portland, OR at least, I get to choose from a number of different speeds and ISP's.
For me this is the difference between a *real* connection to the Internet, and a download only one.
(Shameless plug --If you do not live here, skip!)
www.spiretech.com
- Shell account on server via SSH or (gasp!) telnet.
- Some level of free web site hosting.
- Good connectivity
- Only real user restriction is that you do not abuse the connection. So running a commercial site is out, but all the hobby level stuff is ok.
- IP address by username in dns. Not static, but very useful. eg: user_name@dsl.spiretech.com
These things matter a lot to me. I use my home connection for many different activities. Many are related to my job, but some are just for learning.
So, you basically trade choice and connectivity for speed. For me that's fine. Maybe others see the same?
Blogging because I can...
Adelphia's Cable Modems Compromised
Easy, yes. Secure? Private?
Maybe. Maybe Not.
www.christopherlewis.com
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).
Support bacteria! It's the only culture most people seem to get.
I believe that more people in the US use cable rather than DSL due to the distance limitations of DSL. Since the population of America is so widely dispersed over a vast land, I think that cable becomes more practical. However, in places like Western Europe and Asia, DSL becomes more practical due to a very dense population. Nevertheless, I think DSL will hit it off big in the major cities and metropolitan areas of America. Cable will make it in more rural areas.
high-speed Web surfing done via cable modems, which in general costs about $10 less a month in the United States than DSL service does.
So... any idea why cable's more popular in the US?
Seriously though, DSL is expensive. When my sister ot her apartment, there was no way to get cable access and DSL was, IIRC, $70-80 a month. Much too much for a grad student to pay, unless you'd absolutely die without it.
The DSL companies may be very popular, as is cable, but if they don't drop their prices to more afordable levels, they'll lose out on customers. More importantly, we won't beadvancing the world of tech as quickly. In a few years, if it's not already, it's going to be damn near impossible to do much with a dial-up connection. Web sites are getting larger and more complicated, and more people will need wider pipes.
Anyway, back to work.
Riiiiiiiiiight.
Funny, I can put together a pretty nice-looking website with any of several Windows text-editors. And there are free/low-cost WYSIWYG packages out there (some are old, but still usable).
I hope that's sarcasm, because if not, you're inventing a problem that doesn't exist in order to promote a class-warfare agenda.
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.
Hi,
would be interested in what you pay for your connection?
I'm paying about 40 EUR/month, (24/7 ADSL 768/128 Kbit) with unlimited traffic via German Telekom (T-DSL). Which is running very reliable.
IMHO this isn't really cheap, but much cheaper then the metered ISDN access before.;)
Cable isn't an option for most people here.
Thx for reading
When I first got a cable modem, I was blown away by the speed, often in excess of 350k/sec but after a couple of years and the popularity of the internet and broadband the speed has dropped significantly as my neighbors have all jumped on the shared bandwidth. I think my average speed has dropped down to 120k/sec which isn't bad but there are times (often after work at night) when the speeds are much slower than that and there are signs that it may drop even lower than that...
My DSL has DHCP, an accessible IP, has a small cable I plug into the phone socket which isn't exactly much.
Oh and Cable isn't in my area. In most of Europe Satellite TV rules the roost, except for major cities and even there Sat tends to have an edge. Europe didn't spend the 50s,60s and 70s installing a cable TV network, it went straight from terrestrial to Satellite. This means that the only network that is EVERYWHERE is the Phone network hence DSL.
So you'd want DSL if you were in a place where the investment in the Phone infrastructure has been going for the 40 years that cable investment has been going in the US.
This is why no-one is suprised (except the Slashdot editor) that Cable is big in the US and DSL big everywhere else. Its sort of like saying "Hey look CDMA is big in the US but GSM is big everywhere else".
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
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.
is a no brainer. The telco's in the US are primarily concerned with keeping their monopoly at all costs. This isn't too surprising, considering that all of them were in the not-too-distant past just one company that was forced to break up. Unfortunately, by breaking them into regional monopolies, nothing was accomplished (Which is also why I, and several other insightful posters, were against breaking MS into an OS company, and an applications company.), because while they no longer had an iron grip on the whole nation, the smaller companies has iron grips on blocks of states, with no danger of competition from neighboring baby bells. True, the long distance market really took off, but the local/regional pie is still nothing but SBC, NYNEX, Bell South, and the rest. These smaller companies are the ones responsible for DSL's terrible acceptance in the US. A quick check while writing this post on dslreports.com shows that I can get 608/128 for $42 a month. I've hit speeds of 2000/128 with my cable modem, for $40 a month. Cable is faster, cheaper, AND IT WORKS. Yet with DSL, the happy people are happy, and the rest have nothing but horror stories of telcos missing appointments, not bringing the right equipment, damaging existing wiriring, and generally making it a royal pain. Sure, there's "competition" in the DSL market (again, the baby bells versus Covad, et al), but with prices being less attractive, and the installation/support headaches, it's not worth it unless you have a cable provider that spies on you (comcast) or blocks practically all useful services (cox).
I suspect that one of these choices is incorrect. Correct.
Ok... winning? Have we all of a sudden picked sides? I'm sorry, my friend, but I'm on the side of cheap, fast, unhindered broadband (i.e. the best product). There are no sides therefore there is no winning other than in the very individualistic sense.
Right now the cable BB is much better than DSL: the service is more consistent, it is faster, and price is comparable. Now what happens if everybody in my complex jumps on Roadrunner? Well then switiching over to DSL might be an opprotune move.
Actually the only people who I can say are winning are e-businesses. Wasn't one of the roots of the dot-bomb the lack of sufficient average internet speed? The faster, more persistent the connection is, the more likely consumers will browse which is important for that Impulse Buying thing.
"Ohhh! They released Hoop Dreams on DVD! Gotta pick that up!"*
*Note: the commie bastards still haven't released Hoop Dreams on DVD.
What is music when you despise all sound?
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.
From a technical point of view cable is a much better solution than DSL. If you want to send broad band signals then you have to be better with a nice controlled impedance transmission line like coax cable rather than some birds nest of twisted pair. Never mind the lower potential for interference.
However, in most of the UK people don't have any choice about cable supplier. I had to use NTL and they were totally useless. I spent 1 month off line when my cable modem failed (I rented it from them) and the only way to get technical support was to phone after midnight and listen to musak for 45 mins.
With ADSL I have dozens of suppliers to choose from and I can go to someone who provides the services I want (e.g. static IP). They all depend on British Telecom to service the wires, but at least the people I am dealing with have an interest in retaining my custom.
cable around my neck of the woods (new york city, time warner cable) thinks blocking ports is a good idea (anti-kazaa)
the village voices discusses
[cynic] you decide if verizon (my dsl provider) does not block ports because blocking ports is bad, period, or simply because it is not a content-oriented company like aohell time warner. [/cynic]
either way, i think the us will quickly catch up with the rest of the world in dsl usage over cable usage.
since the coupling of media content companies and cable companies is a lot tighter than the coupling of media companies and telephone companies, then port blocking will always look more attractive to cable companies. so cable companies will port block more. and then irate current customers and potential customers will sense this, and more and more will choose dsl.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
There's a wireless ISP in my area that offers apparently good service, at prices roughly the same as cable; thing is, on their website, they mention initial fixed equipment costs at $500-1000. If it weren't for the high initial cost, I'd switch in a heartbeat.
-- Never hit a man with glasses. Hit him with a baseball bat.
Two main reasons
1) Network topology. Cable is a ring, so all the consumers are sharing the bandwidth, the local connection forms the bottle neck. xDSL is star, each customer has exclusive use until the backbone. It suffers less contention. This benefits the consumer.
2) Cost. Cable expensive to install, you need to install a new cable ring and new run to each subscriber. XDSL operate of the existing twisted copper pair of the local loop. This benefits the ISP.
AIH, We are rolling out a broadband Interactive DTV using IP over ADSL because of these advantage.
One thing that I like about DSL over cable (having used both in my area) is that the latency of the DSL is better. I think most people are probably more latency sensitive than bandwidth sensitive. When you are clicking links, you want that instant feedback.
I went with DSL out of convienance. At the time of the broadband revolution, cable was light years from my area. However, there is a switching station litterally 250 feet from my apartment, so I went with DSL. At such a close proximity to the switch, I enjoy constant speeds in excess of what many of my cable-using friends get. Of course, in theory, they should be recieving much better performance then I with their cable, but that is hardly the case in my city for some reason.
On the flip side, many areas of the US have their phone companies run by scum-bag pirates with no morals. /.) got to the root of the problem and bought a new modem.
I recently called my phone company to inquire about the second line that serves my mother's 56k modem. Before the representative would answer even ONE question of mine, he turned the tables for a full 5 minutes trying to convince me, insult me, and belittle me into purchasing DSL service instead of fixing the 2nd phone line. Seeing through the bait-and-switch pricing plan, I continuously refused him.
When he finally did answer my simple question involving dial tones and a "live line", it turns out he didn't know anything at all about electronics, modems, or software protocols. All he knew about was how to be an arrogant COCK.
After rejecting my EE hardware solution, which involved unplugging and re-plugging the jack before connecting, my brother (Biffer4810 on
DSL should be a choice. For as seldom as my poor mother does email, the phone-modem works just fine.
hi, I like pancakes -.-- -.-- --..
Too far from CO for a DSL hookup. With LSD I couldn't tell the difference between line noise and data. My main man @Home, went busted. I really need is a speed fix. Worldcom offered me a hit of T1 for $1000/month. Looking for a high quality, low cost bandwidth pusher to satisfy my habit.
.. 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!
Wake up and smell the coffee.. You've been throttled back to 120K/sec just like me and many other cable customers over the past year or two.
I was 18500 feet from the CO in Broomfield, CO and was running a CAP connection with 18dB of signal quite nicely for about 2.5 years. Suddenly it quit working and I checked and found 12dB of signal. Qworst put me on a DMT connection (it took two weeks for them to do this) and now all is wonderful again. I'm only about 2000 feet from the DMT (CO?) connection point and am routinely getting 55KB/s downloads. You can try slashdotting my server on the URL above (Solaris 8 on dual 180 processor Sparcstation 10) on the 256K upline.
The IPCC has purposely engineered a massive scientific fraud.
Im in the UK and have a 2Mbs aDSL link, 256kbs upstream as all UK adsl is, I pay 100 UK pounds per month for this, which is pricey for me but I love the fact I get zero restrictions, my ISP (Griffin Internet UK) doesnt care what servers I run or how often I run them, gives me 8 Static IP address's and really good support (my router died last night, called support in the morning, new router installed in the afternoon). I couldnt ask for more really. I have a Windows 2000 server running and 2 FreeBSD servers running managing my databases, web, mail and dns and use file sharing progs all the time with no worries.
Laptop Reviews
You have some points wrong:
"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."
Population density in Finland is lower than in US, still ADSL is pretty popular here. I believe that majority of population in US lives in cities (>100000) cities, thus mountains, deserts and artic tundra won't make big difference.
"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)."
At least in Finland this isn't true, Internet connection via cable modem is available in all major cities.
Reason for ADSL success is it's stability:
With cable modem you will get fluctuating 50-500ms ping in Online games with 10-60% packet loss. This is totally unplayble.
With ADSL you will get stable 90% of Finland's land area (and >95% of population) was covered by GSM network by 1998. As I pointed earlier Finland has lower population density compared to US.
Most people communicate on the web using web bulletin boards, IM clients, email, etc - and publishing to the web is easy and cheap (my girlfriend can do well formed HTML in notepad easily enough and host it on angelfire if she desires).
I smells a troll....
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
I was gratified the other day when I saw that a company that I almost got DSL service with went under (Directv DSL), and the cable company whose Acceptable Use Policy was unpalatable has serious problems with their Cable Modems (Adelphia), confirming the fact that competition is a good thing. As I was able to find a DSL provider with a good AUP without having to go with some major market player, which you just don't see with cable. All I wanted was to be able to run my own server, a small non-commericial hobby site and my own email. Now if I can just get faster service. I'm a long ways from the CO... and the wireless provider in my area is still using shoddy equipment and can't quite reach my house (too many trees).
Sorry, should have indicated that my gf, while being quite intelligent, is no computer genius and generally leaves all PC related tasks to me.
:)
I didn't mean that to sound like "if a girl can do it, anyone can"
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
When they put up the World Trade Center, suddenly everyone in Manhattan's TV reception got really crappy because of multipath. So they started installing Cable. I remember trying to watch TV in my Grandfather's apartment on 5th avenue during family holidays. Terrible!
You don't say where HERE is. In the twin cities, MN I have cable with about 1.5mb/s down and 384kb/s up. The standard DSL here gets 640kb/s down and 272kb/s up. I don't really like AT&T but I despise the main local phone company (qwest) even more. I am tempted to get DSL through a good local ISP Visi so I can get a static IP address even if my speeds are slower.
ZERO ZERO ONE ZERO ONE ZERO ONE ONE! Just brushing up for my next big invention: Ethernet over Voice (EoV)
Too bad capitalism is keeping the broadband market f**ed up.
Capitalism? Capitalism only works if companies have to compete for customers.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
I first went from a dial up to cable - which needless to say was a welcomed improvement. However, I soon found the downside of my cable service from Charter Communications, or actually a third-party company called High Speed Access (AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE!!!). The problems not only came from total lack of customer support, but stupidly designed networks. My whole town was on a single network node! So you could tell when the kiddies came home from school - you'd loose all connectivity as all the packets started colliding.
Making matters worse, I'd frequently wait on hold for 40 minutes to argue with HSA's 'support' desk. I'd tell them there was a problem, they'd tell me they didn't have any record of the problem, etc, etc. Funny, when I pay $50 / month for a service I can't use, I fail to see why I should continue paying. They were down every other weekend!
Charter was very good about the issue, but unfortunatly, HSA was impossible to work with. In the end, I dropped the Cable modem - and HSA kept charging me. I finally had to forward my many deliquency notices to Charter, who dealt with HSA's substandard billing department. I believe I am finally off the hook for this service that did not provide the high speed access (or even 'access') they claimed.
After dumping cable, I got DSL from my phone company (Frontier) and have had the best of luck. Maybe once every 3-4 months, the service is out. But when I call, there is usually a message explaing the outage, and giving an estimate of when it will be back. No more waiting 40 minutes on hold for an argument! What's more, I have never seen any of these downtimes last more than an hour, where with HSA's cable service, it would last entire weekends!
But best of all DSL provides a ROUTER - I'm on my own node. The only packets going out of that router are the ones intended to go out of the router. Cable modems toss packets indesciminately (unless you have a firewall infront of it).
A Friend of mine has Time-Warner cable, and does not have the problems I had with HSA. I believe this is because they came in later in the game, and learned from the mistakes of the other cable providers. But from my experience, most cable networks are poorly implemented, and extremely insecure. Not worth the money, from my experience.
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -- "Step Right Up", Tom Waits
Every Cable provider in CO has a absolutely horrible cap on uploads. Downloads may be very fast, but if I try to send something to anyone, I might as well be on a modem. DSL doesn't have this.
Furthermore, the cable providers around here have a clause in the contract that you can't run a server. And they do actively look around for servers. With DSL, I can run a server because the upload is sufficient enough and my ISP won't shut me down because I'm running a server.
Another thing worth taking a look at is the legalities behind both systems in the US. While cable companies are selling broadband internet service with little to no regulation, phone companies must abide by numerous policies set for them in years past. This leads to unfair competition and an unfair advantage for the cable companies. It helps explain the reason why cable is winning! The Breaux-Nickles bill in congress was attempting to even up the regulations.
In many areas Cable in the US is 3 t0 4 times faster than residential DSL at the same cost....
thats a no brainer choice for who to buy service from...
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
Top five for those who are too lazy to click:
(country, DSL-lines in 1000, lines per 100 population)
- South-Korea, 6076, 12.7
- USA, 5837, 2.0
- Japan, 4223, 3.3
- Germany, 2800, 3.4
- China, 2220, 0.2
Numbers are supposely from september, but I know that Germany is at >3000000 lines right now, so maybe they're not too accurate (or Germany's market is growing real fast...Look out for China, it'll lead this ranking soon, just because of being HUGE.
cable IS better
Cable is not *better*
It is fine for broadcast but it is not really suitable for large scale role-out of Internet access or video on demand services. It local ring suffers too much contention for for these service.
XDSL is particularly suited to Internet access or video on demand services.
fact that Cable is Faster
Cable is not *faster*.
Modern Digital Cable systems may use fibre for the ring, making it faster than a single DSL line, however that connection is contended.
In DSL each subscriber has their own dedicated line which is only contended at the DSLAM (DSL access multiplexer), where it is connected to the Internet backbone.
Like most topics it is a matter of horses for courses.
As a counterpoint I live in downtown SF and I've never had problems like the ones described. Then again my building has modering wiring.
I really don't believe that a real tech from PacBell would give the response "that's normal". If you are getting that from a first level tech support person ask to be sent to someone more senior. Have you actually done any line quality tests during these periods? Or during normal times? All modems can do them now.
--- I do not moderate.
The DSL companies may be very popular, as is cable, but if they don't drop their prices to more afordable levels, they'll lose out on customers.
The cable and phone companies are monopolies, within their service areas. They are indeed loosing out on customers. They don't care. They set their prices to maximize their revenues. They have (in case of the phone company) ISDN services, voice/dialup services, long distance services, DSL, and probably other services that I have forgotten to list. Some of these are substitutes for others, so they have to optimize over all of these prices at once. If they are indeed setting the monopoly price, they will certainly be getting the maximum possible profit, and will certainly be leaving many customers unserved to achieve that.
Yes, I am aware that there are companies which are offering services on the phone companies' lines. They've been unable to get service for their customers, unable to compete with the monopoly, and they seem to be dying like flies, so I don't think they invalidate my argument in general. I haven't heard of anything comparable for the cable companies, either.
It is a commonly-held misconception that cable and phone services are natural monopolies. It is easy to see how the confusion arose: the ownership of the transmission lines is indeed a natural monopoly. The provision of services over those lines is not!
If we were starting from scratch, we could set up monopolies to own and operate the lines, and allow free competition in provision of services over the lines. Any business would be free to offer any service it could move over the lines, EXCEPT the line-owning monopoly. Unfortunately, in the US at least, we have huge, hugely profitable monopolies which have a vested interest in keeping their monopolies on service provision, and are able to prevent any such rational approach.
Isn't America great? We have the best government money can buy!
And now, to drift off topic:
In a few years, if it's not already, it's going to be damn near impossible to do much with a dial-up connection. Web sites are getting larger and more complicated, and more people will need wider pipes.
Not sure that I buy this. I can do anything I want to on dialup. Downloading ISO's is a bit of a problem, but that's what jigdo is for.
If your website is too big and complicated for dialup, I'll do without. Here's a free clue for ``web designers'': if you have lots of Flash and glitz to waste my bandwidth, you're telling me that the content doesn't matter. Since I go looking for content, that means that I don't have to go there!
One of the surest signs that a website is free of useful content is the presence of Flash. Since I've uninstalled Flash from my browser, the web has gotten noticably better. If a site pops up a ``you must download Flash'' message, I know that I can close that tab, without waiting for it to load, or even looking at it.
See what I've been reading.
As someone who has used both DSL and cable, I'd have to say cable wins hand down.
My story:
1 year of DSL on the Ryhthms (now defunct) network on a 128k link, then a year of Cable (ATT Broadband), now I'm back to DSL (last 10 months or so) with a Covad 144k link.
3 different services because I've lived in 3 different places in the last ~3 years.
My first bought with DSL occured because Cable wasn't available in my area, nor was Verizon DSL. The only thing I could get at home was a business DSL line from Ryhtms (128 up and down) for $100.00 a month. Install went smooth (1 month after ordering) and I had 5 static IPs. I didn't have the bandwidth to run much in the way of servers, but I was able to host my own DNS for some other projects. Service went down probably 2 full days a month. Not too bad, but it wasn't great.
Then I moved to the next town over. They had ATT Broadband. $49.00 a month. I must have been the only one on my segment using the broadband feature, because I could have 3 or 4 downloads going at once at speeds up to 700k. I also had a static DHCP host name, and had no trouble SSH'ing into my boxes remotely (I used a netgear 311 router/gateway and had 4 machines behind it).
Well, the girlfriend didn't like where we were living, so we moved after a year back to the town that had no cable broadband.Rhythms had just gone out of business, and I was back in 56k land.
After a month of research for a faster connection, the best I found was a Covad business connection (144 up and down) for $149.00 a month for 5 static IPs.(again, not really the bandwidth for runny and kind of a server, but static IPs can be useful) Install happened a week after I ordered and went fairly smoothly.
In the ~10 months I've had Covad, they have been back no less than 6 times to fix the connection. I'd say it was down 4 full days a month, especially if we have any major rainstorms.
With cable, I never had a problem, it was up 100% of the time, was much cheaper, and a lot faster. Of course, if I lived closer to a Central Office, I could get better DSL service at a cheaper price, but I don't...
However, my prayers were recently ordered and they just finished upgrading my part of town with the new digital cable lines. We have digital cable TV, and as soon as the year contract expires on the DSL, I'll be switching over to ATT Broadband once again.
--
Lots of people are pointing out the issue of population densities which are in inhibition on the ability of DSL to penetrate the market.
.... Now if only we could figure out a way to do away with those unsightly power lines to boot.
However in the US there is also a real problem with the control the phone companies have over the telephone infrastructure. Not that they don't have a right to control of something they invested in but where the phone companies are not diving into DSL they are charging the DSL providers an arm and a leg to install and modify customer connections.. sometimes as much as 50-100 bucks simply to follow a customer through an address change.
Ultimately both cable companies and Phone companies have to integrate new technologies to add broadband net connection capabilities but for DSL providers there is the additional 'access' to the infrastructure charges that the cable providers are largely not having to deal with. To add insult to injury in most cases where the phone companies are attempting to provide DSL service themselves they are charging only a minimal amount less than non-phone company providers.. and generally tie those rates to using them for your phone service provider as well.
Population density is only part of the story... if you check census data you will find that the majority of the US population lives in fairly dense poplation areas.. DSL could easily have more users in the US if it were not for the issues presnted by the phone companies... as is cable companies have embraced broadband access much more readily and have thus secured a competitve edge.
In the long run I think both are doomed... the cost of a physically wired infrastructure is insane, creating, maintaining and updating. Countries on the scale of the US face and even larger problem in trying to maintain and update its many sparsely populated areas. On the other hand Wireless technologies are rapidly maturing to the point of being able to replace a wired infrastructure. In fact in many countries cellular services have all but replaced land line phone services. The same will happen in the US and in the rest of the world I imagine.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
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.
A while ago /. told me that DSL was losing out. I was surprised, I thought DSL was a winning technology that all those P2P junkies couldn't live without. (and hey, who wouldn't want his downloads go 24 times as fast as others downloading from your box?) Now they are telling me that DSL is winning. Surprise again. ``But they said...'' Turns out DSL is winning over cable everywhere, except in the USA. (No surprise here, the USA usually has it different from the rest of the world.) I don't know about other places, but I know that in the Netherlands cable is painfully slow in many places, which may or may not be related to pretty much literally *everyone* having cable TV. I just could imagine the signals interfering, leading to limited bandwidth. I might be talking out of my head here, though. At any rate I know that normal phone communications don't interfere with xDSL because the xDSL signals are modulated (the xDSL signal does cause a noise on the phone line that is massively annoying to humans and destructive to modem communications).
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Wireless has the inherent problem that it is a shared media. The bandwidth you can achieve is therefor divided by the users.
Next thing, bandwith is limited by the frequency you are using.
Sadly, there is a practical upper limit for the frequency used, otherwise you'll need a line of sight.
How can one increase bandwidth? By covering smaller areas. But practically, there is a lower limit. Otherwise, in which ways does the provider differ from a home user with his NAP.
Then, there is the reglementation of the frequency spectra, which will most surely not vanish, which limits bandwith, too.
In contrast, increasing the bandwith on wired connections is fairly easy, because of its controllable enviroment.
There are developments to deploy fibre-to-the-home already.
My memory is a little vague here, but IRC, in Japan, there is a govermental plan to reach a certain coverage (20% ?) of fibre-to-the-home to a certain date (2005?).
I may be a little pessimistic, but to me Wireless seams not like a competitor against digital subscriber lines, bandwith wise.
At best, they complement each other. One providing lots of bandwith, the other high mobility and less hassle. Wireless expanding greatly on the cost of DSL seems unlikely to me.
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
Here in Germany there are many areas where you can't get cable TV but DSL is available.
I believe the difference between the US and a European country like Germany is that in the US, phone companies usually don't own the TV cable network. In Germany, for example, the Deutsche Telekom (a former governmental organisation) owns most of both the phone and TV cable network; they just don't offer Internet over TV cable.
Claus
Neither the coax cables, nor the phone cables, were initially intended for broadband internet access. As such, both cable and DSL are hacks. However DSL is far more of a hack; trying to do broadband over unshielded twisted pair copper wires is absurd. "Let's hope you're close enough to the switching station that the signal doesn't totally degrade..." At least cable is over a shielded coax cable, something with massive bandwidth that doesn't crap out during bad weather.
And the objection about cable being shared bandwidth, is silly. The Internet is shared bandwidth. Nobody has a "direct line" to any server. Insofar as the cable company is not overselling, cable is a much better technology.
>>In the U.S., (cable modem providers) are beating the hell out of us," Rodey acknowledged. "But globally we're beating the hell out of them
What are cable installations like outside the US? Do the providers offer ISP services? Is there a correlation between offered cable ISP service, and DSL installations?
Without seeing the numbers, I can guess 2 reasons why DSL may be winning worldwide:
1. There's no cable/broadband alternative.
2. Even if there is, it may be that the support provided by the local telcos is superior to that offered here in the states.
Cable in the US, when it's available is faster and more reliable than DSL. THe cable companies seem to have everything set up OK. But the telcos here in the states, well.... their infrastructure, customer service, and corporate culture related to DSL leave a lot to be desired.
The lineman that came to my home to fix my DSL troubles last year was a smart guy. He knew his stuff about both phone lines, and computers. But he was stuck on how DSL itself worked. He said Linemen aren't given any DSL related training, and are just thrown into the field.
He tried to call the DSL office for help, none was provided. So I thanked him for his help, and he left. I had cable broadband running by the end of that day.
This guy works for a company who's name starts with a V, and has Darth Vader as their spokesman from time to time.
Maybe this kind of thing doesn't happen outside the US.
Huh?
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.
My issue with DSL vs Cable: port blocking.
The cable company apparently wants nothing to do with hobby servers on their network, blocking ports and what not. Several in my family have the service and get terrible upload speeds, and blocked ports.
It seems the DSL providers in the area don't block ports, but you get worse upload speeds than cable.
Are there any server friendly DSL providers out there? I'm in Rochester, NY, and many of the so-called national DSL providers don't offer service in my area. I'm plenty close enough to the POP and get decent speeds with DSL now, but want 512 Kb ADSL that won't cost a mint every month.
It's not much to ask.
Looks like scifi storm got a bit, oh, fucked over by their DSL provider.
I'll stick with cable, thank you very much.
Install ONE filter at your external connection point, on your second line.
All your outlets should be wired to your second line.
Your DSL modem is connected to your primary line.
(or vice versa).
At least that's how I did it.
Then get a Linksys router and don't use the PPPOE software.
Do those things, and DSL is better than cable, AND most DSL companies aren't nearly as restrictive as far as ports and quotas and such. AND you're not sharing your connection with every other joker in your neighborhood, (and they're not sniffing your line, or hacking into your system).
All in all, DSL is way better than cable in every way.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I believe that majority of population in US lives in cities (>100000) cities, thus mountains, deserts and artic tundra won't make big difference.
That may be true, but the US idea of a "city" includes suburbs that sprawl for 50km in various directions. In some cases, there are as many residents 20km from the ciry as there are in the city limits. Sometimes more.
With cable modem you will get fluctuating 50-500ms ping in Online games with 10-60% packet loss. This is totally unplayble.
Not on my cable system, but of course resulta vary from place to place. I would say if you see 60% packet loss from any ISP, you need to be complaining to someone.
90% of Finland's land area (and >95% of population) was covered by GSM network by 1998.
I don't know if you really grok the difference in scale between the US and Finland. 90% of Finland's land mass (337,113 km^2) is equivalent to 3.2% of the US's land mass (9,363,130km^2).
Incidentally, we have fairly decent GSM coverage in the Southeastern US, as long as we're relatively close to an interstate highway.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
the response is simply "it's raining, that's normal".
That is not normal. Demand the installation of a new clean drop cable.
I work for a telco (www.kcom.com) that uses ADSL extensively for this project (www.kitv.co.uk); we a amoungst the worlds leading experts in xDSL deployment. We regularly obtain 8Mbps links at 3Km line runs. We conducted tests of the copper & bridges totally immersed and the cross talk was actually reduced. (The physicists concluded the frequency was to high to overcome the resistance and the water therefore acted as additional shielding against crosstalk.) The issue is much more likely to be crosstalk, RF interference, or poor quality drops.
DSL runs over ordinary telephone lines which were not designed to carry high bandwidth data.
Wrong. xDSL IS designed to carry high frequency data over telephone lines. It uses the coppers full capacity whereas a voice or anologue modem only uses a ~14Khz.
I personally don't care which is technologically better (Cable or DSL). In the precise location of where I live, I do not qualify for DSL. End of story.
I have cable and it rocks. I get about 4.2 to 5.7 megabits per second downstream from my ISP which is on an internet backbone and it never dips below that. My ping times are also rock bottom - I play Battlefield 1942 on EA's servers and get ping times of low 60's. My cable provider is Cable America. The time from when I requested service to the time I actually had service was probably 30 hours. It cost me nothing (no install fees) and I pay monthly (no forced yearly agreement). So to sum up: I have static ip, 4.0+ mbps downstream, 512 kbps upstream, all for $35 a month.
DSL? I can't even get it, and even if I could, I'd be paying a hell of a lot more for the same speeds.
That's why I have DSL in Canada, it only covers what 9,984,670 square km (3,855,102 square miles for you metricly challenged).
I tink the biggest problem in the US (and I lived there for 2 years and had cable internet), is the age of your telephone infristructure, it's old and nobody want to spand any money to upgrade what alreadRiiiight
That's why I have DSL in Canada, it only covers what 9,984,670 square km (3,855,102 square miles for you metrically challenged).
I think the biggest problem in the US (and I lived there for 2 years and had cable internet), is the age of your telephone infrastructure, it's old and nobody want to spend any money to upgrade what already works.
When I was in the Bay Area (Foster City/San Mateo County) literally on one side of the street I could get a nice 43000+ dial-up connection, the other side I was lucky to get 23000, hence why I got cable.
DSL marketing in the US is also very weird (read fsck'd), you get you "Internet" service from one provider, but you still have to get your DSL line from the phone company, when ever I checked, this always had a higher cost than cable.
Here in Canada, I get the "internet" service and the DSL line all from the phone company, there are a few other "competing" phone companies I could look at, but I stick with the "monopoly" one (Telus) as it is most prominent. I pay $80 (CDN) a month for my service (about 53 USD/Euro) and for that I get:
- 2.5 Mbps downstream
- 640 Kbps upstream
- 2 static IP addresses
- No blocked ports
- 12 GB/month Internet connection traffic (8 GB/month down, 4 GB/month up) I have gone passed this and never been dinged - downloading Linux distros @ 260KB/sec is tres cool!)
- 40 hours dial access per month ($1.50 per hour overtime)
This allows me to run all my own servers (web/mail/etc.) all on stanadrad ports, I could do it with the cheaper service ($40 CND/month - 16 USD/Euro) on non-standard ports but that is not an option for running my home business.I know many people who have gone from cable to DSL up here, I don't know anybody who has gone DSL to cable.
This is not the sig line you are looking for... -- Old Jedi Sig Line Trick
.
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.
.
DSL is working now quite well, but the problem is that DSL comes down the phone line and in Germany, the cable operator IESY is still somewhat related hence the reluctance to move to cable, however they are starting slowly and at a price similiar to DSL.
See my journal, I write things there
I can't sign up for Speakeasy until DTV has de-installed their service from my line. But no one at DirectvDSL is answering the phone, there's only a recording telling me what I already know, that they are going out of business. But no one will take my call so I can cancel.
Anyone else having this problem?
Edith Keeler Must Die
Mostly because Comcast or whoever it is that does cable here these days doesn't offer internet serrvice. So I enjoy my relatively problem-free DSL, which is just as fast downloading as the cable modem I had when living in another city (150 KB/sec, same for both of them). Of course it is PPoE, so no web hosting or anything, but then DSL is too slow upstream to be of much use for this anyway (aside from an email server, anyway).
It was much easier to install than Cable was, for me anyway; I don't know about most people, but I have only one cable outlet in my house (nowhere near my computers), but many phone outlets. Makes it much easier for installing the modem where I want it. And I have a nice 10bT modem, as I recall SBC offerred a choice between that and a USB one.
And who was complaining about the little line filters? Dude, it takes like two minutes total to put one in every phone jack in the house, and they don't cause any problems whatsoever - faxes, phones, even regular modems work fine through them.
Cable would be nice if I wanted to do some hosting, but it isn't available in my area (the cable co. claims they would need to install all new equipment, which they are apparently unwilling to do, never mind the fact that I live in a college town of about 60,000 that would probably have a rather high demand for this sort of thing) so I am more than happy with my DSL. It is certainly enough to download things at high speeds, play games, and do work on the internet, and since this is 99% of what I want to do, it is perfect for me. Sure, it goes down for a couple hours every other month or so, but that really isn't too much of a problem.
>Ah, but as pointed out here before by others[...]
Now, it gets interesting. In what context has this been pointed out? Mobile phones, which are another form of wireless access.
> This means that it is much easier and cheaper to reach a higher percentage of the population with fewer fiber runs.
The costs of fibre lies not in the length of the fibre, which cost next to nothing compared to the rest of the hardware or the costs to lay the cables, especially in countries, where they have to be run underground (Germany comes to mind).
But, AFAIK, most industrial countries have already fibre-to-the-hub, and some have partially fibre-to-the-curb. This is necessary for telcos providing DSLs, in order to carry the bandwidth without having to run several hundreds lines of copper.
How does the lesser population density affect the (assumed) bandwidth barrier of wireless access and the (assumed) constant increase of bandwidth need?
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
Opening up the ability to publish could, as you suggest, be done by providing everyone in the country with a free copy of FrontPage. However, the ability to publish is limited if that that you publish can only be seen on, say, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and it would not be beyond Microsoft to modify FrontPage to do just that, restricting content only to that small elite who can afford Windows 2000 and Windows XP with Internet Explorer. A better solution would be to develop the tools: make those provided by Linux the equal to, or greater than, anything the competition can provide. The "cheap knock-offs", as you put it, would then be open to everyone.
This quagmire of content controlled by an elite will not disappeaar by itself. Unless people are prepared to actually act, not just talk about it on Slashdot, nothing will ever get done. Apathy is not an option.
You can help by getting off your rear and writing to your congressman or senator. Tell them that the only way to open up the information revolution and provide the ability to openly criticise government to all is to provide open, capable, web publishing software to all for free. Tell them that you appreciate the work being done in the Free Software and Open Source domains, but if more resources are not devoted to improving the output of these groups you will be forced to use less and less secure and intelligently designed alternatives. Let them know that SMP may make or break whether you can efficiently deploy OpenBSD on your workstations and servers. Explain the concerns you have about freedom, openness, and choice, and how providing free, high quality, web publishing sofware can help all three. Let them know that this is an issue that effects YOU directly, that YOU vote, and that your vote will be influenced, indeed dependent, on their policies on open web publishing software.
You CAN make a difference. Don't treat voting as a right, treat it as a duty. Keep informed, keep your political representatives informed on how you feel. And, most importantly of all, vote.
KMSMA (WWBD?)
I get my dsl through speakeasy.net and I couldn't be happier. for $59/month I get a very fast, stable connection with two static IP's and a buttload of other stuff. Additional static IP's are only $2.95/month. They don't care what you do with your connection, and I just got a newsletter from them encouraging me to hook up some wireless network gear and share my connection with the rest of my neighborhood. And to top it all of they gave me my choice of a PS2 or Xbox when I signed up with them.
BTW, if you want to sign up and give me some referral money go here.
I am on Cablevision's Optimum Online, and the speed is obscene. 10Mbs download, 1Mbs upload. Equivalent DSL is not obtainable; the fastest DSL is about 3/4 the speed of OOL and costs 5x more.
The only downside to cable is that it is far from symmetrical, leading to a lot of bandwidth inefficiency. But that should change as cable companies roll out DOCSIS 2.0 which should take the pressure off upload bandwidth.
i live in a town that has both, but dsl was available first, so thats what most of my friends have. i have cable on the other hand. The one advantage I find is that on DSL when you are uploading, your downstream gets the crap kicked out of it, whereas on cable I can u/l and d/l at the same time no problem. All my friends on DSL have this problem, its SBC aDsl for those interested.
Moderation Totals: Flamebait=2, Troll=1, Redundant=1, Insightful=6, Overrated=1, Underrated=1, Total=12. (not mine)
Oh, did you mean installations?
I can explanate how to administrate your network. You must configurate and segmentate it, so it can computate.
I live in a semi-rural area about 20 miles outside of the city where I work. I have absolutely no options for Broadband (except satellite but that's a joke).
Funny thing is though - My local phone company is Verizon! Huh? Why can't I get DSL? Because they don't think enough people would sign up to make it profitable - so the goon on the phone says. The local cable company is Adelphia. I'd guess it's the same story from them but never bothered to check it out since I have Dish Network.
Here's an even better stick-in-the-eye. My folks live in the 'burbs - up there they have Ameritech for the local phone company. Two weeks ago, my dad gets this call from SBC - "Sir, we wanted to let you know that DSL is available in your area now, would you be interested?" My dad says yes so they send out a box the next day with the modem, nic card, etc. Well, he's supposed to "go live" last Monday. Monday comes, he hooks everything up (all on his own even!) but doesn't get a signal. So, being the patient guy he is, he waits until Tuesday. Tuesday morning he checks it out - still no signal. So, like any patriotic citizen, he calls tech support. Somebody walks him through the proverbial steps 1-4 but still nothing. This guy says he'll write up a work order and forward it to the local techs - "usually it's something really simple". Well, about 15 minutes goes by when the phone rings - it's Ameritech. This guy tells my dad, "Hey, I got this work order and tested your line. Sorry, pal. Your phone line won't support a DSL signal. Box 'er up and send it back. Man, if that ain't a swift kick in the stones! Oh, but he did say that they're working on running fiber in the area right now.... it should be available sometime in '04.
I gotta tell ya, I'm so sick of hearing about broadband and the lack thereof, I could spit. Just recounting this makes me fume. I'm so tired of beaureacratic corporate bullshit. Be sure to thank your congress person for de-regulation and the wonderful Telecomm legislation we have.
If you do what you always did, you get what you always got.
I'm holding out for residential T1. I'll get Cowboy Neal to pay for it.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
..because I was living in an apartment, and neither of the two cable providers in this city (Melbourne, Australia) would do business with me. Optus basically said "no, we only do houses, not apartments, it's more profitable", and Telstra spun me some bullshit about getting permission from the body corporate etc. etc.
ADSL, on the other hand, was no hassle at all. I've moved since then, but stuck with ADSL since I now own the modem. Also, the fact that I don't own a TV means that the old cable TV + cable internet deal isn't so attractive to me. :-)
I did have various network problems until I threw away the crappy PPPoE software Telstra supplied me with and installed RASPPPoE, which works perfectly.
The most important thing to me is the policy as to what you can have installed at the customer end and what you can do with your line......
Would you get a phone if you could ONLY call outbound?....That's what's happening with my cable modem policy now....No servers...NO....of course, you can get around that by using off ports, but it's the principle that counts....besides, the cable speed is capped both directions, so even if my home server gets hit with the "slashdot effect," there's only going to be so much effect on my neighbors.
I think that it's different for DSL because it rides on the "Public Utility" that is your city/country wide phone network. I believe that it's covered by telecom regulation. No such situation for the cable guys...cable is a non-essential service, they can do whatever they want and you can either take it or leave it.
I think you would see more DSL if the telecoms could impose more restrictive Acceptable Use policies on their customers. As it is, it seems that they are holding back....it also seems like it's more about content production/distribution than it is about the DSL competition dis-incentive (you know their latest story..."let us eliminate the smaller DSL providers and we'll put more DSL in.."). If the telecoms could ream your ass harder, they would....
Next, I'll prob. have to insert my "smart card" into the network modem so that I can shop online...I tell ya, between ATT cable, the Dept. of Homeland Security and the RIAA/MPAA mafia, you won't be able to write bad poetry on a bar napkin without going to jail, owing somebody a royalty or getting your legs broken. Perhaps all three.
I don't know if you really grok the difference in scale between the US and Finland. 90% of Finland's land mass (337,113 km^2) is equivalent to 3.2% of the US's land mass (9,363,130km^2).
So the USA has 30 times as much land to cover, but it also has 50 times the population (and 70 times the GNP) of Finland to pay for coverage. Population density is the only worth while measurement here.
Incidentally, we have fairly decent GSM coverage in the Southeastern US, as long as we're relatively close to an interstate highway.
I don't think many Americans understand what good coverage is. I've trecked through the tundra for days and found myself in places where the only manmade structure visible for miles is a cell tower on nearby mountain giving perfect coverage. Close to an interstate highway? I'm talking places with no roads.
Of course, this is not all good, since the Nordic governments have, for political reasons, made coverage of rural areas a condition for receiving GSM licenses, meaning that it is us city dwellers who are paying for all the underused towers...
Don't ask why, I was just in a mood
1. dns stuff is username.dsl.somethingelse.spiretech.com
2. You cannot really make use of the net without becoming part of the net.
#1 is me being anal because I wrote it wrong the first time.
#2 is a double edged sword. Having a dynamic IP, maybe a proxy or something combined with your favorite browser (It had better not be IE!) means that you can enjoy some limited privacy, but not any real privacy. So if some webmaster wants to know who looks at www.sickpics.com they get a number. Since they have to take steps to resolve that number into a name, it is likely they won't bother. So you get some privacy via laziness, but not any real privacy because *the record is still there*.
On the other hand, if someone wants to know who surfs www.childporncentral.com, they are going to know dynamic IP or not because the law makes this easy. (And I think it probably should be.) Again, the record is still there.
So if it does not matter you get some privacy, but if it does, you don't.
So in trade for some small degree of pseudo-privacy, you trade the ability to really make use of the Internet. You could run mail, serve your own files from your own website, have remote VNC or SSH to your machine (damn handy), and do other things that people actually connected to the Internet get to do.
For me the trade is not worth it. A lot of the interesting stuff about the internet has to do with the activity between users of the Internet. Every person who makes that simple trade not only limits what they can do, they devalue the choice for others.
If more people actually used the Internet, we would have fewer large companies trying to force those of us who actually understand what the Internet is and where it's value is, into limited consume only services.
Ever wonder why most service providers make your connection lopsided? (1mbps down 64kbps up) They all assume that you won't actually be making use of the internet. Serving your family photos, running a game server for friends, or writing interesting network applications are all things that have a lot of value yet are ignored by people like you who think they are getting something, but really are not.
Another point here. Ever hear of P2P and all the hassle it is causing? Well the solution is clean and simple. If you want to trade files with friends, do it on your machine on your terms. Got an interesting track for a friend, SSH to their box and drop it there followed by an e-mail. Simple, legal and private as well.
Think about it for a while. You may not want to be doing those things today, but what about tomarrow? Want any say over what your machine can and can't do? Good then it is time you participate with the rest of us so when the time comes you will actually know enough to make a decision that matters. While you are at it, tell your friends.
That is why I chose DSL over cable. Most of the cable companies don't get it. They see interactive television. Click and drool at its finest. At least DSL provides some choice because the ISP can be decoupled from the data transport service in most areas.
You probably won't bother reading this, but what the hell. Start by getting an account here, stop hiding behind your insecure nature and actually participate in this thing we call the Internet before you can't. It is likely that there are people worse than you on the net, once you see that you can't be at the top and understand it's hard to really be at the bottom actually using the Internet is fun and you will get something out of it.
Until, then don't bother trying because it is a waste of our time.
Blogging because I can...
And internet by cable is *very* rare in Germany.
I'm kinda surprised, I would expect Germany to be one of the first countries to get broadband right. You guys have all the smart engineers right?
Or is it a matter of social policy? I heard a few weeks ago that Germany banned the playing of "Counter-strike", an on-line teams based first-person shooter. That seemed extremely odd to me...
It all seems kinda confusing to an outsider...wish I had more info but I don't know where to look. Any links?
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
... at least 50 cable modem subscribers just in my subdivision. And, probably one fourth of those 50 are high bandwidth users; gamers, work at home, home servers, etc.
I said that cable was not really suitable for large scale role-out of Internet access or video on demand services. On our ADSL infrastrasture (www.kitv.co.uk) every consumer has a defacto PVC and can view Video on Demand to a STB and use Broadband IP for Internet access simultatniously. Cable infrastucture was not designed to support a PVC to every customer.
Also, I don't know the technical details of Israel's telecom infrastructure, but I can tell you that Bezeq makes any US phone co look like saints in the customer service realm.
Not that you care, though.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent