Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Re: Who's getting DSL?
Author: Eric Soroos Posted: 1/14/1999; 9:49:58 PM Topic: Who's getting DSL? Msg #: 2138 (In response to 2136) Prev/Next: 2137 / 2139
In my metro area, there are cable modems from TCI. They were supposed to be in my (previous) neighborhood a year ago November. There is also supposedly cable TV competition out there (Summit), but they only serve three neighborhoods in Seattle and maybe the Eastside.As far as I can tell, the only telco competition is in the downtown business district. Down there you can actually get a DSL line where the provider of everything but the last half block of copper is our ISP. But there you're talking about two blocks of copper to the ISP, then two hops to a private nap.
So basically, the only company providing copper to my house is either TCI cable tv only or Us West. Metrocom isn't doing the highspeed wireless (ricochet II) yet, so that isn't an option. I'm not holding my breath on TCI. They have missed so many deadlines in seattle that the city is considering giving them notice that their contract is void. The bottom line is that if I need outbound copper, I go though USWest for the wire. The services can be provided by others, but they have a monopoly on the 2 way copper.
The bright spot in all of this is that Sprint is going to be rolling out their ION technology to residences in 6 months to 1 year. For those of you who haven't heard, ION is all digital phone data, bits is bits. Supposedly you pay a flat fee for damn fast access a traffic charge. The neat thing is that your aren't paying a fortune for the fat pipe, just what you sling along it. And adding a voice circuit is as easy as pressing 9 on your business phone.
I can't wait for competition. If it has to be two monopolies fighting it out, so be it. But I'd rather see true multi-faceted competition for my bandwidth business.
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