Re: OT: Question about broadband service in the Swansea area

["mike808" <mike808@users.sourceforge.net>]

> Otherwise, does anyone have any other suggestions for DSL?
> How  bad (or good) is Charter?  Does Charter do any type of spam
> filtering on  their email accounts (one of the features my parents like
> about APCI).

My thoughts on Cable vs DSL (consumer ADSL, to be precise):

With DSL, you at least have a chance with an ISP that might give you a
static IP.

Cable has a much higher downstream bandwidth available than DSL.
(6-10Mb/s vs 1.5Mb/s)

Cable is *fast* ... When you're the only one in your neighborhood using it.

Cable ping-times 5uck for MMORPG, UO, SWG, UT, QA and the like. No
consistency.

DSL is typically *switched*. Cable is usually on a hub. Meaning Cable
provides more of that fun/fear factor you know and love with Windows
machines - except we're talking about those of your neighbors (fellow
cable subscribers).

DSL only suffers from oversubscription at the telco exchange location.
You can ask, maybe your ISP will tell. AFAIK, here in MO, SBC put in DS3s
between the COs, so in a low-population CO, I pretty much get my 1.5Mb/s
allocation.

You usually have to "upgrade" to "Digital Cable" to get "Cable Internet"
service. That means more money for the same cr@ppy 135 channels with
nothing on. It means you can get "video on demand", instead of waiting
fifteen minutes until your movie comes on HBO#23. And it means you have
to "upgrade" to a more expensive remote, and cannot use your TV's or VCR's
"cable" tuner anymore.

It means you cannot *buy* your remote/tuner anymore, to do with your
property as you wish. You must *rent* the *cable company's property*,
and risk a DMCA smackdown if you violate the EULA/rental agreement.

How many binding contracts do you sign where the other party can change
the terms of the contract at will?

The Cable company gets to decide who your ISP is (them, conveniently).
The Cable company gets to decide what *they* choose to *allow* on *their*
network. They pro-actively limit what services they allow and provide
within and through their network - mainly as a result of millions of
clueless Windows customers simultaneously urinating in the gene pool that
was the hallowed Internet that Al Gore built.

That said, with DSL, well, it's easier to hunt you down on the internet,
since your connection is more "fixed" than a typical cable connection.

And you're left to fend off malformed packets from all over, not just
the ones from the miscreants in your own neighborhood/head end.

Your DSL service is treated like a "utility". Your provider is primarily in
the utility business. Your provider thinks you are sending them your money
to get reliability and "utility" treatment, and that this is money you
*have* to spend in your budget.

Your Cable service is treated like "entertainment". Your provider is
primarily in the entertainment business. Your provider thinks you are
sending them your money to be "entertained", and that this
is "discretionary" money in your budget.

Think about the implications of that for things like "telecommuting" or the
way you view your ability to use the internet or what the impact of an
outage of service would be to you, and how such an outage would be treated
by your provider.

Think about that when you consider how pricing is regulated between the
two. The government cares more about your interests (vs the suppliers)
when they are controlling money you *have* to spend - insurance, power,
telephone, medicine, transportation, milk/food - far, far more than they
do about your interests (vs the suppliers) when they are controlling
money you *choose* to spend - cable, NTSC/HDTV, movies, music, software.

Mike/





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