Gary B Smith at TheStreet.com bitching about DSL as a lead in to his technical analysis column (subscribe, it's worth it):
thestreet.com
Has anyone looked into this DSL (that's high-speed Internet access) stuff? I just did, and what a scam! On the surface, it seems like a great concept -- except that you apparently have to live at the telephone company if you want a speedy connection.
The further away you are from a switching station, the worse your speed is, until you get to no-man's land, which is something like 17,267 feet and 2 inches away. At that point, your options are a telegraph or two cups and a long string.
So I went to some nifty site -- www.dslreports.com -- and actually measured how far I was from nirvana. Yeah, I'm 17,269 feet. It's like my address should be "Smith Family, RD #1."
So that leaves me with:
(A) A cable modem,
(B) A satellite dish, or
(C) My current 56K modem.
The problems with each:
(A) I despise my cable company. Its idea of customer service is not cursing loudly at you.
(B) One snowstorm, and I'm doing an Edmund Hillary imitation to the rooftop? Right.
(C) Biggest joke in existence. Has anyone really ever gotten 56K performance?
So I'm pretty much screwed. Technology passes me by -- again.
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