DSL Rising 402
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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DSL Rising
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Scientists will study your brain to learn more about your distant cousin, Man.
DSL and Cable are great... (Score:4, Interesting)
Hopefully 802.11(x) will allow the little guys to compete.
Next month news: DSL Dropping.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Have it, love it (Score:2, Interesting)
cable IS better (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Re:Kind of Like GSM & T/CDMA (Score:2, Interesting)
For some reason != US goes in a different technological direction than == US. It's usually equivilent, but parallel advances.
Doesn't Matter (Score:2, Interesting)
Now, if those corporate control freaks would just get off their keisters and hardwire my town, I could pay their salaries...
Laws to help DSL penetration? (Score:5, Interesting)
In other words, what Mr. Rodney is trying to say is that the United States needs laws to help DSL penetration and to give DSL providers a competitive advantage in the United States. Excuse me Mr. Rodeny, isn't it your department to become competitive?
I have DSL through BellSouth, and I had to call them today because they billed me incorrectly. Two weeks ago I had to call them because I wasn't getting synch. A week before that I had to call them because something else wasn't working. (It's turned out that a BBG is down.) Yet this entire time my friend with cable didn't have to call his provider, got better speeds, and doesn't have to pay a mint to the phone company.
What am I missing? Do DSL companies not want customers? Can they not do regular network maintanence or bill correctly? It seems that cable internet providers can do all this and cheaper. Kind makes me want to switch to cable.
One major DSL problem (Score:5, Interesting)
With Cable I experienced a reliable weather-independent service.
I've Used Both (Score:5, Interesting)
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).
Cable's winning in the US (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
speed + popularity... (Score:4, Interesting)
Why cable only wins in America... (Score:3, Interesting)
Winning? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:cable IS better (Score:5, Interesting)
This is like saying that a 5 lane highway is faster than a 3 lane highway. It's how many people or on that counts, and what speed limit is permited
I see no diff between the two.
Uptake slow because telco at capacity on DSL (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [theregister.co.uk] and refusing to signup people who don't request MSN as their ISP.
Re:cable IS better (Score:3, Interesting)
That is dependent on your DSL provider, no? I have a dsl bridge, so my traffic is raw. Unfortunately, acedsl, in ny, is a shitty provider as well. I see other people's arp requests. They use a software router that will ban arp's that aren't listed in their db at a 5 minute refresh rate. Stupid stupid stupid.
Sounds like your place didn't have dsl installed on a particular extension in your house. It was done like that for me. One jack had it installed, one phone filter.. don't notice anything.
Depends on where you live. Because your line becomes dedicated in DSL, you can have guaranteed line speeds TO your isp. With cable, correct me if I'm wrong (nicely), hubs/switches are installed regionally. Small regions... like 1 per house or set of houses. They can become saturdated if you are in an apt building and have a lot of downloaders. Some places, 1.5Mb/s is about $40. In nyc, it is a bit pricier.
Why would you want dsl? Some cable providers filter, manipulate and/or track. I can't speak for who-does-what, but I've heard stories. You can't find a mom-and-pop cable provider that has nice restrictions. I don't like AceDSL? I can go to clound9, or speakeasy or nyct.net. There are more than a dozen out in brooklyn. Cable? All i have is cablevision. I don't care for them much, but i have more choices.
Maybe cable is great for you, but dsl does have its merits and advantages depending on who you are
Re:Cable is Better in YOUR area (Score:4, Interesting)
Which may very well be the reason why cable is "better" in the US.
Of course, Europe didn't really need to run much coax to begin with. They don't need anywhere near the same amount of UHF/VHF broadcasters to cover their entire country.
DSL harassment (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
but cable is usually poorly networked (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Breaux-Nickles (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:cable IS better (Score:3, Interesting)
if you are a "bandwidth hog" they automatically upcharge you. just because you were using your broadband for what they sold it to you for.... I remember watching the "download movies,music,etc..." ad's... now they want to recind that.
Cable versus DSL? easy one... DSL all the way.. until cable operators get a clue that the customer is not the enemy and that the upload caps will solve server problem anyways.. (hell let me run 90,000,000 servers at 128Kbps it doesnt matter anyways.
I'll take DSL above cable anyday... the Cable TOS is way too restrictive for what you get and pay for.
Good points but (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
The reason (Score:1, Interesting)
As somebody who works for a ILEC DSL provider, let me just say that the reason for the local vs. world discrepancy is obvious. In the US, cable companies are not as fiercely regulated as the phone companies are. The gubment treats our DSL rollout condition to anti-monopoly laws meant for phone lines. The cable providers don't have this dragging them down. If it wasn't for the goverment screwing things up in this area, we would have had DSL deployed to almost all US areas by now.
Re:Cable is not *Better* (Score:2, Interesting)
When Time Warner initially launched cable modem service, it really did suck horribly. They have since gotten their shit together, and they now provide very reliable and high performance service.
This is definitely a matter of providers not technology.
not all DSL (Score:1, Interesting)
This *should* be good news for other areas around the country that are rolling out fiber, but I don't know how many areas are doing that. Around here, most new neighborhoods are being built with fiber.
Re:cable IS better (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Next month news: DSL Dropping.... (Score:3, Interesting)
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?
Re:Breaux-Nickles (Score:3, Interesting)
No?
Oh, you mean they're going to make it fair through an ebbing tide that lowers all boats. That's typically what government does: make it harder for everyone, all in the name of fairness.
Doesn't anyone see a problem with this?
Re:cable vs dsl (Score:4, Interesting)
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