For a while now, Comcast has been advertising how much better their high-speed Internet is than DSL; for example, they used a pair of low-speed turtles (but I repeat myself) named the Slowskys to contrast the old and busted DSL with teh new hotness of cable modemity. Since I've been workin' teh newer hotness of FiOS for about two years now, I would mock those ads; Comcast was picking on DSL because it knew it would get its clock cleaned if it went head-to-head against FiOS.
But now I understand why: according to Wired, DSL still comprises 40% of the broadband customer base in the US (cable leads with 53%; fiber trails badly with 4%, and 'other' takes the remaining 3%). Since DSL customers have to be within two-ish miles of a phone substation, that means most of them are already in cities or towns, where, presumably, cable already exists. THERE'S your target demographic. Going after FiOS customers wouldn't even be worth the effort.
And I was so hoping to get out of this week without learning anything.
Posted by Chris at February 10, 2009 01:06 PMi have dsl. they just doubled my download speed for free. i used to have cable. and it IS faster, when nobody else is on the WAN with you. but when you get a neighborhood full of people all sharing the same WAN, your speed suffers.
you might think that still, after hours, the WAN will be devoid of users, and i get it ALL! but no, someone always has something downloading.
dsl is dedicated. i always have my base speed of some 640 k/sec. and that is better for me.
fiber huh? who is your provider? what's the price. i haven't seen anyone advertising that here, yet....
Posted by: mlah at March 8, 2009 01:01 PM