What is Digg?161 Comments
- Subcranium, on 10/12/2007, -7/+36Analysts are largely a bunch of herd-following, backward-gazing copy-monkeys. One analyst's opinion is equivalent to the opinions of 10 of them because they are not independent thinkers.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+28With DSL costing about the same or sometimes cheaper than dial-up, I wouldn't be too surprised.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+28"The high-speed service of choice?" What industry crack pipe was that author smoking?
Ahhh.... the European crackpipe. Okay. Maybe this explains it. Not true in the US, for sure. - jnw05, on 10/12/2007, -1/+23This might happen if:
1. "Naked DSL" actually happens.
2. Naked DSL is cheaper than cable.
3. Naked DSL can be just as fast as cable. (15-30 Mbps) - ahhell, on 10/12/2007, -7/+26Not true in Canada either. DSL is crap.
- gothicx00, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11See, Ireland, I hope you actually do live in Ireland, because if you live in the US you might be sorely mistaken about DSL. Sounds like to me you simply either have a really crappy cable company or the wiring in your home is old enough that it doesnt lend well to HSI. And if that is the case, DSL is just going to disappoint you more, because if the cable is old, i'm willing to bet the copper phone lines are older. And even if that isn't the case, DSL is *distance sensitive*. The farther you live from the CO (short for coroporate office, the little box nearby that allows for high-speed data over conventional phone lines) the worse your connection is going to be. And here in the US that distance can differ widely from area to area. And phone companies are so desperate to get you to sign up, that they'll let you go through the entire set-up process, including recieving the modem and everything, and you may find out while they *think* you are close enough to get your modem to train up, you really aren't. Part of the problem is that sometimes these CO boxes end up having to go either on somebody elses property or nearby, and non-tech savvy or stuck up members of your neighborhood protest to the city, and get it blocked. Other phone companies are just too lazy to put enough CO's in any given area to make everyone's connections decent.
I used to work for AOL, where a great deal of our job was selling other peoples High Speed Internet solutions. So i can tell you with great confidence, if somebody (especially cable) is making you enter into a 12 month agreement, they usually either know their service is shoddy or they are taking such a hit on the price that the only way they can make up for it is to keep you as a customer for 12 months. Honestly I've only seen 2 cable companies that require a 12 month commitment, while nearly all phone companies require a 12 month commitment.
Now if you actually do live in the UK or Ireland, then forgive me for my rant. But it needed to be said for all the US subscribers of either service. In the UK (and Ireland) if the phone companies want to put a CO in a particular place, they put it there and people don't get to bitch about it. And they don't have the "let's just install enough to get by" mindset that the US phone companies have. /rant - gweedo767, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9I am an AT&T DSL customer. It is cheap and fast.
Options:
1) 1.5Mbps $12.99
2) 3Mbps $21.99
3) 6Mbps $27.99
Now, of course you can't go naked DSL here. So, if you don't use your phone at all basically, pay $10 for a metered line and call it a day. As a bonus you can now make 15 local calls and get unlimited incoming.
$37.99 for 6Mbit + some calling options = better than what cable can offer me. - shakin, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12"Thank God cause cable is noted for being unreliable, mine is hit and miss sometimes. When the 12 month contract is up I'll be switching to DSL. I'll pay less and I'm getting 3mb instead of 1mb."
Sounds like you have a bad cable ISP. I'm on Cogeco and I won't consider switching to DSL. I get 7 Mbps downstream and it never goes down. The last time I was without internet was when most of the Eastern seaboard had a blackout :)
I've found that DSL providers don't offer as fast a download rate as most cable providers. I can get maybe 5 Mbps with DSL, but I doubt I'd see that speed. With cable I routinely download at 800+ KBps (6.25 mbps). - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10I switched from cable last year, every month it just kept getting more and more expensive, they just kept trying to find ways to ***** the customer more, such as decreasing our speed then "PAY 10$ MORE TO GET IT BACK!" -- If you think the RIAA/MPAA are greedy, they have NOTHING on the cable company.
So now I pay 30$/mo for _BETTER_ service (aka, speed) than I ever had with cable (ok, not quite true, in the early days of cable it beat out dsl any day, but you could say they screwed themselves) The telcos are catching on and offering much greater speeds as well, cable is dead, and I'm glad. Now all we need is an economical competitor to DSL so the telcos don't get a big head. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11Hmmm....lets be a Verizon commercial for a moment.
DSL service cost 14.95/month
Cable Internet cost 39.95/month
DSL 768k down
Cable 6+ mpbs down
Compare apples to orange and you get Verizon, the rest of us live in the real world and have, faster and be comparison cheaper, cable internet. - krakelohm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Man.. with an argument like that how can it not be true?
- jonnyeh, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11What about Rogers killing Bit Torrent traffic plus closing account that use more than 100 GB of bandwidth in a month?
That's a good reason to go DSL IMO - afeitarse, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Well, if the number of hubs increases so that more people are within service range, I don't see why it shouldn't surpass cable. The average user (at least on today's internet) is not going to notice the speed difference between a good dsl setup and comcast...and they will definitely notice the price tag difference ($15 vs. $60+).
- Bound4Doom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7See thats the thing I do not understand. To have DSL you must have a phone line. Also when you sign up you are required to have a phone number. While you can cancel the phone number after installation and DSL still works fine. But when you add the cost of the phone line is it really cheaper? Me personally I have not had a hard wired phone in over 12 years. I have a Cell phone. I really do not need 2 numbers, so when I moved into my current house 5 years ago I never even had phone lines run, I do not need them. I had cable run as I do like to watch TV once in a while but cable internet works just fine for me. No I do not need a VOIP phone either for over 10 years you have been able to directly connect and talk through most instand messengers. Which is what I have done with my family for years. Again no extra cost, you just get higher speeds through cable.
- zatrix, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9@ahhell - seriously!
Plus with rogers upgrading the network and rumors of the 15meg pipes up and coming, I have no reason to even consider the weak DSL lines that we have up here. - masamunecyrus, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9And it's about 30 times cheaper than cable. -_-
*kicks cable modem* - Ireland, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7@ gothicx00. I do live in Ireland, still I enjoyed your rant ;)
- jahelton81, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6It makes sense for most people who don't really need xxxMbps of bandwidth for downloading movies, games or whatever. (not that anybody here does that of course...) For people who just want to be able to access broadband content, it's a better choice.
- Nightfall, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I love the cable's better/dsl's better arguements. It reminds me of the tastes great - less filling beer commercials that I have seen on TV. Broadband is so area dependent. In some areas, DSL could rock while cable sucks and vice versa. To say one broadband technology is better than the other hands down is ignorant.
Second, both cable and dsl have their package deals. If you want DSL, odds are you will have to buy a POTS line to go with it. If you can get naked DSL, you have to pay more for that anyway. Then on the cable side, most providers won't give you a cable modem unless you have cable TV or you pay more per month just for having the internet portion of the service. Either way, I believe it is crap.
The main reason why DSL is gaining on cable is the price. DSL prices have been going down while cable internet providers have been holding steady or going up. For the common consumer, price is everything. If they can get DSL internet for $13 a month through SBC, thats a better price than $45 a month through Comcast. As long as prices stay low for DSL, that will be the first choice of consumers. - marnaq, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5DOCSIS3 will be the DSL killer.
- joeyjojo, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8so do cable monopolies
- djg38, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5"I thought cable could only go as high as 10 Mbps....fiber can get 15-30 though."
Comcast is already testing 20-30mbit cable in many areas, they're just not selling it yet. Fiber can do gigabits, not 15-30 megabits... - scsikool, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6What bugs me about cable is the pricing structure. We pay almost the same for cable Internet as for cable TV!
I can understand the price for TV since there is the cost overhead for programming and all those channels, however Internet service has none of those things and it infrastructure is piggybacked right over the TV service. If I have TV then I should be paying 1/2 to 1/3 what I'm paying for cable TV since there is not the additional content.
I just got the feeing I was being hosed when I had cable internet so I switched to DSL. I had both for a very long time. - jholdaway, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6just run DSL down my street you g*d da*n at&t !!! I would rather pay 12-14 bucks.. this 45 is killing me!
- chicken101, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Here in New Jersey, DSL is terrible IMHO. Not only that it only 1/3 cheaper than real broadband. Perhaps by 2010 this will change, but for now DSL can't compare to cable (around here optimum online is the only choice for it).
- OficerMantimber, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I think the two main reasons dsl probably will overpass cable is: cost and availablility. Within a ten mile radius of where I live no one can have cable, so we all have satellite and dsl. Additionally I get 1.5Mbps for 25 a month right now and it works fine for me. The majority of people only browsing websites and not downloading massive files will choose saving $15 over a much faster connection.
- superal1394, on 10/12/2007, -0/+43 mb down 384 kbits up cable in new york is 45 to 50 dollars a month.
- koolaide, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5It really depends on where you live. I had Mediacom cable internet for about 4 years, but my only alternative was 256/256 DSL. During that 4 year period, I watched Mediacom increase their upload from 128 to 256, and the download from 1.5 to 3 to 5. I recently moved to Des Moines where Qwest DSL is available. It's $20 less than I was paying for Mediacom, and I have 7mbit down and 896kbit up. Oh, and the other thing is, I always get that speed, no matter what time of day it is. At 5pm when everyone got home from work, my cable liked to slow down to a crawl.
I agree that in most places, DSL is crap, but in some places it rocks. - dosequis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I am in agreement with bound4doom. DSL isn't cheaper because (at least from the providers I've seen) you need to have landline phone service to your home. The phone company doesn't sell a naked DSL line. So there's an average of $50 a month for a phone that only allows local calling, that I would hardly ever use plus the 29.99 for DSL. That's $80 bucks a month folks. Hardly cheaper than my $50/mo RoadRunner bill. If I had cable TV it would only be 40/mo.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Not sure if I agree completely, but most analysts are basing their analysis on the same body of observations, and usually coming up with the same, or very similar conclusions. Once in awhile someone comes along with a fresh perspective, but it doesn't last long before its the same drivel that the rest are spouting.
- joeyjojo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5^ agreed. The biggest argument FOR DSL, IMHO, is that it isn't directly owned by the media giants (as many of the cable operations are).
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5huh? Where I live:
Adelphia (our "cable") 44.95 = 3Mbps/512Kbps (next month, 2Mbps/256Kbps) oh and you have to have cable TV let's smack another useless ~40$ on to that bill for ya, there ya go...
Verizon = 29.95 = 3Mbps/768Kbps
so uh....which would you pick? - joeyjojo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Qwest is horrific. BUT, they're not in bed with the **AA. So they get my business.
FYI, if you want DSL in a Qwest area, do NOT have Qwest as your ISP. Use ANY other ISP. They can get things done vis Qwest much faster than you having to deal with them directly. - griz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Try finding service like that in a rural area.
Adelphia Cable in Central, NH is $55/mo for 4Mb. Rarely ever get even close to that, generally around 1.5Mb.
I opted to downgrade to their 256 up and down which actually runs around 384 up and down for $24.95.
I barely notice the difference unless trying to download a lot of stuff at once. Podcasts, watch online video and surf on multiple systems. A Bit slow for vonage and I'll likely go back up to the more expensive service, but the options suck. The other option is TDS telecom which offers DSL and local dialtone (required ofr DSL). Their DSL prices suck and with the required phone line is no better a deal than cable w/ vonage.
Just proves that competition in a market can make all the difference in the world in terms of pricing. - adml_shake, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3but you have multiple people leeching off the line you have, where as with DSL the line you have is your line and isn't shared.
- Permanent4, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Didn't Jupiter Research also pick Betamax over VHS?
- vertinox, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4FiOS or fiber to the curb will overtake DSL by 2015. (or at least that is what I am hoping... 40mbps here i come!)
- ksgant, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Now if only they can get the speeds up. I currently have SBC DSL...er...AT&T or whatever they're calling it this week....and I have the top speed package they offer in my area, which is 3mbps service. Which actually peaks out at around 2.5mbps even though I'm only about 75 yards from the switching station. Oh, and btw, I've had this service for almost 3 years and having had one iota of problems. I can't say the same for when I had Comcast/ATT/@home (yeah, I went through all the different name-changes on that one also).
I want 6 or 8 or 10 mbps DSL...when does that come out? - adml_shake, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4You might have a argument if verizon was the only game out there. While Comcast in my area is faster they down time they have is unacceptable. After getting sick of my modem rebooting at random times, having to reboot it myself every few hours, and going to the comcast office about once a month to swap it out for a new one I told comcast to go piss on themselves and I got DSL. Slower yes, but It I'll take slow and no problems over fast and crashing all the time.
And while you do have 6 down, when it comes night time and all the porno freaks are getting on to get off I'll bet hard cash that my DSL line blows your cable connection out of the water. - honavery, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3$50 a month for a land line? I got a bare bones line (no long distance, no caller ID, etc.) for $13 a month a couple of years ago. I have cable right now and am thinking about switching. My cable is pretty fast though, it peaks around 6 Mbps.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4In Canada, at least, I don't see much difference between DSL and Cable, servicewise or pricewise. I don't see how it's the "high-speed service of choice".
In fact, the DSL provider in my area (Telus) is well known for cracking down on high bandwidth usage (high = 5GB down/month or 1GB up/month), where I've gone well over 100GB/mo with the cable provider (Shaw) without them blinking. They don't even care what your up/down ratio is.
Also, Telus requires you to also subscribe to a phone line. Shaw doesn't care if you're a cable subscriber or not. That's a big deal if you're like me and have gone cell-phone-only.
The infrastructure is laid out pretty much equally for both DSL and cable as well.. How, exactly, is DSL winning?
Edit:
Telus DSL: $35.95 CAD / month for 4Mbps ("Enhanced": $45.95/mo, 4Mbps)
Shaw Cable: $38.95 CAD / month 5Mbps ("Enhanced": $48.95/mo, 7Mbps) - astrotrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3DSL (if available in your area) is a hell of a lot cheaper then Comcast.
Yeah you loose the speed... but your not a slow as dial up, and your only paying I think now... $17.95
a month opposed to $49.95 a month. And as with DSL or cable, never...never ever use their installation
cds unless you want junk installed on your system. - Tweekster, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Well DSL is superior in every way around me, it never goes down, is half the price for three times the speed.
Although Charter blatantly lies about that comparing "pipes" (who gives a ***** about the size of the pipe) Tier for Tier DSL is far better, price, speed etc. But some people must believe charter ads because it is popular, so their lies do work.
They attempt to compare charter's highest (and obviosuly MOST expensive class of service) to DSL's cheapest and slowest speed (a class that isnt even offered, but would be three times the price of what is offered by their crazy math). 1.5 meg DSL to the 382 kbps cable, dsl costs half the price for the first year, hmmm which am i gonna choose. - gothicx00, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3back @ Ireland
Thank you, you would definatly be one of the more level headed diggers around....
But the fact still remains, DSL in the US just plain stinks as a whole. I've had both DSL and Cable in the past, and with 9mb down and 1mb up on my Cox HSI, I'm happier than a pig in *****.
and @ Koolaide
Congratulations! You are one of the few, the proud, the satisfied DSL customers. If DSL is what works for you, great. Awesome even. And while i've heard of this mysterious "slow down due to user saturation", in 8 years of having cable internet, I've never experienced it. Maybe it's because I live close to a fairly large Air Force base and they built the telecom and backbone infirstructure so well, that the cable company decided to continue the tradition.
So my final response is, whatever "analyst" decided that DSL will overtake Cable inside of 4 years is not looking at the big picture. DSL works for some people where the cable internet just plain sucks. Cable works for some people where the phone company still has their heads up their asses and won't explain to the general public why they need more CO's. So my suggestion is, try which ever one doesn't have a 12 month contract first (generally cable) and if you don't like it, try something else. I personally don't mind paying slightly over $100 a month for Digital Cable, a DVR box and my HSI. I get great service, and when things do go down (very rarely) it's only because they are making it better. - Ninjaneer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I don't think it has anything to do with the average consumer realizing what they 'need' in a broadband provider. It's a matter of who markets theirs well and prices it attractively. Right now, I can see LOTS of people jumping ship to $14.95 DSL lines because the average bear doesn't know the difference in kbps and Mbps.
We need to think out of the digg bubble because we're tech-savvy people who think a 30 Mbps isn't even enough. The rest of the world has no idea what their computers are even capable of. - zatrix, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4@ jonnyeh - I thought port 1720 was common knowledge by now?
- HP844182, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I've never had a problem with DSL. Had cable for a year and then after the price went up, dumped it for cheaper DSL. For what I need to do, it's fine. Never really notice a speed difference. I don't download movies or other huge files (usually) but if I have to I don't mind the wait to save 30 a month for a connection.
Of course I think we can all agree that our connections should be cheaper and faster anyway... - Dweller99, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Broadband is so area dependent. In some areas, DSL could rock while cable sucks and vice versa. To say one broadband technology is better than the other hands down is ignorant."
Exactly.
In my area for example you are lucky to have Comcast up for more than 10 days straight without an issue, while I had DSL running 24/7 for a year and a half at half the cost.
I am running 5m/2m FIOS right now for $30/month and Comcast can not touch that. A friend just signed up and get 6m/384k and is paying twice what I pay and has already had 2 service calls in the first 2 weeks. He lives 10 minutes away but does not have FIOS available to him. - joeyjojo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'm just hoping that someday we'll see internet access as a public utility and cities will just be set up wirelessly. NO MORE CABLE NO MORE POTS connected to my house.
- accidental, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Isn't DSL slower?
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