[ale] Re-send: Opinions on Cable versus DSL

[aaron]

Previously, Leonard Thornton typed into the ether:
> aaron wrote:
> > 
> > I chose EarthLink/Mindspring last year; I didn't want to just buy into
> > the Bell monopoly and Mindspring had, at least at one time, been good to
> > deal with for alternative platforms.
> 
> Regardless of who you choose, you are still buying into the Bell / cable
> provider monopoly. They own the last mile of cable and therefore,
> everyone just leases bandwidth from them.

Sure... I fully understand that Bell South or the Cable company still
own the wires and will collect something for their use... I am just
trying to avoid letting that fact play into an exclusion, expectation or
coercion for -also- buying their service offerings.

> The downside to this is that they will service their own accounts
> rst before servicing any of the "competitors".

With all of the communication breakdowns, DSL connection problems and
service delays I've experienced and/or heard about, I too am forced to
wonder how much might really be due to anti-competitive attitudes like
"internal customers first". I would love to chalk up my DSL saga to
one person's bad luck with a very new technology... exacerbated by
decreasing levels of customer service from increasingly bloated
corporate conglomerates... but the odds against such consistent
difficulties point toward less benign and arbitrary explanations.

> The FCC just issued rulings on this with regard to CLECs
> and co-location of equipment in Bell CO's as well as service levels Bell
> / incombents were providing.

Good news then! More reason to hope that my crossover switch to a new
service provider on a different phone line could really mean a new
circuit using newer equipment at the C.O.. I may finally get the
respectable ADSL throughput and reliablity needed to properly feed all
my Linux and Amiga computers! :-)

peace
(after justice)
aaron
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