Qdog, it comes down to this: I can get HFC, now, for $39.95/month. I am very happy with it. Much more so than I was with ISDN, which was more expensive. I can't get xDSL, and don't know what the price will be, but indications are that I won't be able to get it in my house any time soon at any price.
I agree with you that the cable industry has a poor track record in some areas. But all cable operators are not created equal. Cox has come a LONG way here. They know that to deliver digital services and telephone service (which they are rolling-out this fall) they must have the reliability. They have done a major upgrade here. Customer service has been exelempary.
They know they will have to go out of their way. When they came out and installed the filter, they replaced my Radio Shack cable, and commented that the cable inside the walls is probably pretty bad. They told me they'd come back any time I like and run a new cable into any room if I'd just drill the hole through the wall.
I don't need technical credentials to observe that the consumer experience between ISDN and HFC have been night and day. When/if Pac Bell can offer me xDSL at a competitive price and level of service, I'll think about it. But I will probably also have a memory...
I do not CARE if my previous problems were the fault of "crap equipment" at my ISP (Ascend Max's, top of the line), rats-nest wiring (looked pretty neat and tidy when I visited). This works, that didn't.
There isn't anybody offering the (nearly) end-to-end management that @Home is using other technology. Pac Bell themselves do offer dialup Internet service, both modem and ISDN, but it is a joke. (I know people who have it and some who used to). No thanks, I'd rather take my chances with those guys with the rat's nest wiring.
No, I am not a telco engineer, so I can't tell you how many T-1's can fit in a 25-pair cable. (12 1/2?) I do have a broad technical background (20+ years), in software and firmware development, and can certainly grasp the concepts. I do work at a company where many of my co-workers are involved in development of products for both the cable and DSS industries (but admittedly not telecom) - they designed the Sony DSS receiver, and so I'm exposed to a great deal of what is going on at the leading edge.
Let me tell you something - every engineer I know there either has or in line to get a cable modem. (And those that have ISDN are dropping it.) The don't have xDSL, because, guess what, THEY CAN'T GET xDSL, NOBODY IS OFFERING IT. And, anyway, they are cheap, and probably wouldn't pay the price. :)
Bottom line is basic system architecture - home-run copper wires make NO SENSE any more. You can prattle all day about the supposed advantage of 100% dedicated bandwidth between you and the wiring center, but WHO CARES? I'M NOT SURFING THE FREAKING WIRING CENTER!
What is important to me is delivery of bandwidth between me and the points that I communicate with. So far, @Home has done a better job of that than anybody else that I have used or heard of. The difference is so startling that I still do not beleive it. Geez, I've got a pipe to Netscape's server (measured) equivalent to a 4X CD. I've stopped saving copies of downloaded software installations locally. And it just works - at last, my net connection is an appliance.
It is an embarrasement of riches really - "how the heck can they do this for fourty bucks"? (Maybe they can't do it for $40, and, of course, that is one of the issues that the market will sort out.) |
