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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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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
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.
"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...
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 think the majority of the problem is the DSL providers making it HELL to use. Mostly the Bells trying to control their network by installing their sh*t all over your computer, giving you USB modems that suck, and generally giving crappy service. I had an excellent small time DSL provider that gave me INCREDIBLE service without the headaches and I would go back to them in a heartbeat, but the bells are completely worthless from day 1. Cable on the other hand almost always use ethernet modems from my experience and don't tend to install much if any special software on your PCs and don't hassle you as much...
just my experience and $.02
--DarkFrog
If the dead rise again, we're going to have some serious population control issues.
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.
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.
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?
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.
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
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.
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.
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.
.. 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.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
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.
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.
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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Your friends should try intstalling some fair queuing in their kernel.
Assuming you have an ethernet adsl modem, when you are uploading you'll fill the sendQ on your modem. When you want send TCP acks for your downloads, it has to wait through that whole queue. If you use something like a bucket filter (I think that's what it's called), you should be able to limit the the outgoing speed on your ethernet card, thus not filling the sendQ, and improving the interactivity.
Ian