August 28, 2001

4:07 PM

Roll Your Own DSL "But why would you even want to do such a thing? Well maybe DSL isn't available in your area. Maybe you want a significantly cheaper alternative to a T-1 line. Or just maybe you and the kid down the block want to play networked games at warp speed."
posted by frykitty (9 comments total)

My first thought (especially knowing the general consensus on Cringely) is that he's making this sound much, much too simple. Not to mention leaving out a helluva lot of details. But if he's not out of his mind...dang.
posted by frykitty at 4:08 PM on August 28, 2001

Read the article closely, and you realize that you eventually need access to the Internet backbone. His great suggestion is to set things up at your employer, which is tantamount to stealing.
posted by Witold at 4:12 PM on August 28, 2001

I wondered about that. Especially his over-simplistic "just hook up the other end at..."
posted by frykitty at 4:15 PM on August 28, 2001

The only place you can practically "hook up the other end" is at an ISP, who will probably not even allow it (much less let you get away with it without charging you less than a T1 line)
posted by bloggboy at 4:24 PM on August 28, 2001

His great suggestion is to set things up at your employer, which is tantamount to stealing.

Huh? From whom, exactly?

This would work out pretty well from a bandwidth utilization standpoint, really. A company's bandwidth typically gets more idle in the evening. Even if they run their own servers in-house, that traffic is mostly outbound; plenty of room on the wire for some inbound traffic for employees Web-surfing at home.
posted by kindall at 5:09 PM on August 28, 2001

In his defense (did I just say that about Cringely?) he really doesn't promise an internet connection. Instead, in the lead of the article he says:

Maybe you want a significantly cheaper alternative to a T-1 line. Or just maybe you and the kid down the block want to play networked games at warp speed. Well here is how to do it.

He's talking about using it as a point to point. I doubt there's a company in most major metropolitan areas that will let you punch a dry pair into their connection, and what the hell would an ISP do it for? I recall that the purpose if an ISP is to charge for internet access.
posted by eyeballkid at 5:14 PM on August 28, 2001

I think that this is more hypothetical than realistic advice. He's saying that the infrastructure for which we pay $mucho is available à la carte for $not-so-mucho. If everybody did this, the Baby Bell DSL monopoly would be broken.

That crucial "just hook it up at the other end" part is in fact the part that the Baby Bells made hell for the independent providers e.g. Covad. To see the point here, look again at cable internet. You have the cable; you have the bandwidth. Why again do you need to be with the cable company's ISP? Why couldn't you be your own ISP? If this were opened up even a crack to other major players it would expose the fallacy of the monopoly.

So don't think he's suggesting everyone actually do this. He's only suggesting that if everyone did this, maybe we wouldn't have to face high-priced DSL.
posted by dhartung at 5:47 PM on August 28, 2001

As even Cringely points out, don't just expect your local telco to just let you have a dry loop, either. They'll tell you you have to be an alarm company, or they'll tell you dry loops aren't tariffed for data, or any number of things. After all, it's still Verizon/PacBell/SBC/Ameritech, etc. you're dealing with.
posted by briank at 6:24 PM on August 28, 2001

The really interesting idea was to buy the old alarm company that looks like a really boring company. The suggestion being that they have tons of these connections made already...
posted by mikel at 8:40 PM on August 28, 2001