What do you pay for dsl/broadband? (salon.com article) Next time you sit down to pay your cable-modem or DSL bill, consider this: Most Japanese consumers can get an Internet connection that’s 16 times faster than the typical American DSL line for a mere $22 per month. Across the globe, it’s the same story. In France, DSL service that is 10 times faster than the typical United States connection; 100 TV channels and unlimited telephone service cost only $38 per month. In South Korea, super-fast connections are common for less than $30 per month. Nations as diverse as Finland, Canada, and Hong Kong all have much faster Internet connections at a lower cost than what is available here. In fact, since 2001, the U.S. has slipped from fourth to 16th in the world in broadband use per capita. While other countries are taking advantage of the technological, business and education opportunities of the broadband era, America remains lost in transition. How did this happen? Why has the U.S. fallen so far behind the rest of its economic peers?
posted by halekon on Oct 18, 2005 - 115 comments

Proposal to have companies rewire their networks to support easy wiretapping by police "A far-reaching proposal from the FBI, made public Friday, would require all broadband Internet providers, including cable modem and DSL companies, to rewire their networks to support easy wiretapping by police. The FBI's request to the Federal Communications Commission aims to give police ready access to any form of Internet-based communications. If approved as drafted, the proposal could dramatically expand the scope of the agency's wiretap powers, raise costs for cable broadband companies and complicate Internet product development." Read more about the FBI's proposal at Cnet.com. or MSNBC. But where is the actual proposal?
posted by fluffycreature on Mar 15, 2004 - 8 comments

SBC Customer Service staffed by bots? The bots themselves don't bother me too much, I think its pretty cool if SBC Yahoo has bots advanced enough that they can use them for online customer service and the bots turn out to be actually helpful (I don't know, since I never have problems with my DSL and have never used them). What is disturbing, though, is the apparent deceit involved by having that the bots insist on being human. Anyone know anything more?
posted by akmonday on Feb 19, 2003 - 17 comments

Buy SBC now. "In order to make sure the economy grows, we must bring the promise of broadband technology to millions of Americans,'' Bush said at a White House-sponsored economic forum. "Government at all levels should remove hurdles that slow the pace of deployment.''

Is the USTA happy about this type of talk? You bet. They would like to see passage of S.2430, also known as the Broadband Regulatory Parity Act of 2002. Others wouldn't. Some have studies (300K PDF) that argue local phone companies are slowing the growth of DSL for anti-competitive reasons.

Also, notice how the President said "bring the promise of broadband technology to millions of Americans", not all Americans? Might have something to do with the fact that rural DSL is really, really expensive to provide.
posted by dglynn on Aug 14, 2002 - 14 comments

"By now, every investor recognizes that Time Warner made a very large mistake by merging with AOL in early 2001." A free-falling stock price, continued loss of customers to cable and telephone DSL and "a murky strategy for moving its customers to high-speed connections" has AOL Time Warner on the ropes. At least one analyst is suggesting a spinoff. Bigger is better? Not in this case.
posted by mediareport on Apr 21, 2002 - 18 comments

The California Public Utilities Commission says it can regulate DSL In what is being hailed as a victory by the California ISP Association, the CPUC has ruled that it will regulate DSL providers similar in manner to the state's power and telephone utilities. While this move could certainly curtail the big boys like PacBell from running roughshod over their smaller competitors, it seems like small, locally-owned ISP's may not have the resources to withstand state scrutiny. Of course, the CPUC could handle this issue as well as they handled the so-called power 'crisis' in the state last year. Is more regulation better than less?
posted by WolfDaddy on Apr 3, 2002 - 8 comments

Is this too good to be true? Last week when I called verizon to transfer my phone service, they suckered me into ordering this dsl service. What really got me, in addition to what they have listed on the site was the 30 day free trial, and that they supposedly use STATIC ip addresses. I was also told that their modem has a router built in that assigns individual ip addresses to each computer. [I have 3 - Windows server, Linux, and Mac]. Too good to be true, right?
posted by disaster on Sep 5, 2001 - 32 comments

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 on Aug 28, 2001 - 9 comments

PacBell seeks to secure a monopoly Californians urged to contact the PUC to put the brakes on PacBell's plan to kill the independent ISP. Should they be allowed to take their toys and go home or be forced to share? And, what effect will this have on the future of tech companies if PacBell is able to lock out DSL competition?
posted by sillygit on Jul 31, 2001 - 6 comments

Verizon sues Covad for creating thousands of false trouble tickets. So that's why my DSL took so long!
posted by josh on Jun 13, 2001 - 17 comments

Bellsouth raises its rates. Here's another link to the same basic information. To summarize: "Now that we've used our monopoly ownership of the telephone lines to blow out all the small-fry DSL competitors, we're going to reap the benefits by further screwing our choiceless consumers."
posted by goto11 on May 4, 2001 - 23 comments

"Stop AT&T!" As expected, former Northpoint customers are losing or have already lost their DSL services, due to AT&T's decision to simply interrupt service. If you are one of the over 121,000 customers affected, sign this petition to let them know how how many people this has angered.
posted by valerie on Mar 29, 2001 - 8 comments

Northpoint assets have been sold to AT&T. AT&T plans to keep only the hardware assets. Guess what? Thousands of DSL consumers whose ISPs purchase DSL from Northpoint, could be without service very soon.
posted by andre_111 on Mar 22, 2001 - 14 comments

Alternative broadband delivery systems So now that all the DSL providers are going bankrupt, and the cable modem providers can't meet the demand, scheming entrepeneurs are looking for other ways to bring broadband to you. The guy with the plan for the hi-altitude airplanes sounds like he escaped from some lame-brained dot-com.
posted by briank on Mar 19, 2001 - 5 comments

Northpoint blows chunks - how they can prepare for new technologies is beyond me. forgive me if i'm bring up a dead or overtired subject but i'm new here... I'm on a personal campaign to let the world know how crappy Northpoint DSL is... I'll try to keep this as short as possible but basically we run a small business out of our house. We're developers. Working via modem isn't really an option (especially when you've got ancient, multiplexed phone lines). When our 1-up/1-down sDSL finally started working my roommate and I didn't leave the house for a week.

Anyway, to make a long story a tad shorter, it's been down for three weeks now. we've lost several days and several thousand dollars worth of billable hours sitting on our butts waiting for technicians to show up whenever they please. I am NOT pleased, and what also really irks me is the fact that basically, Northpoint runs the DSL monopoly in my brooklyn neighborhood. We have no other choice. I'm also taking this to dsl reports. I just really don't think DSL technology is that ready for the masses.
posted by cadence on May 10, 2000 - 12 comments

Do security apps like this one actually work? Anyone here with a DSL or ISDN, or other "always on" connections, have any tips on security at home?
posted by milhous on Apr 19, 2000 - 17 comments

iCrave TV gets busted. And what a shame it is. People want to watch TV over their DSL and cable lines, too bad broadcasters aren't hip enough to realize that. So this small company sees the demand, builds something to fill it, and they're stopped, too bad they couldn't reach a compromise (if you've never heard of iCrave, it was mentioned here before).
posted by mathowie on Jan 31, 2000 - 2 comments