Broadband
Why it's still not for the faint of heart

February, 2002

Given how far broadband access has come in the past two years, it can be easy to lose perspective about how far it still has to go. The vast majority of installations go smoothly, and most people we talk to seem to be pretty happy with their service, which is all well and good. But would people be this patient with other utilities, which, when you think about it, is really what broadband access is?

Josh recently relocated to San Francisco, which among other things meant signing up for a new ISP. AT FIRST, things seemed too good to be true. It actually appeared that Josh had multiple options. He could order DSL through Pacific Bell, MSN, and EarthLink, among others, or he could get cable-modem access through AT&T.

It used to be that we recommended DSL over cable to customers and calleres who were lucky enough to have that choice. Cable offers higher bandwidth, but like the T1 line in your office, it's shared, so as more of your neighbors get online, the slower your service is likely to be. DSL, on the other hand, offers fixed bandwidth, so in theory you'll have the same speed no matter how many people are online.

In reality, we've yet to hear people complain about slow service with cable modems (and it seems that in our unscientific polling of friends and family, cable installations go far more smoothly than DSL installations. In general, cable service tends to be a little cheaper, too.

A SUPERB PROMOTIONAL OFFER from AT&T made the decision easy. The special included free installation, six months of service at $19.95 a month (as of this writing, AT&T had reduced that to three months, which is still better than any competitor we've seen), and then after that, a monthly rate of $45.95. Supply your own modem, and you can knock down that price to $35.95.

If you're pretty sure you'll be keeping the service, we recommend you get your own modem, since you can pick up a Linksys cable modem for around $100.

After the AT&T technician assigned to install Josh's service spent a good 45 minutes puttering around, he determined that despite what AT&T's computers indicated, not only was Josh's house not broadband-ready, he had no indication of when it would be.

With a cable modem no longer an option, Josh decided to move on to DSL. But alas, even this wasn't as easy as he'd expected. Josh knew that his phone wires were DSL-capable, since he had already checked for availability using the former resident's phone number. However, once he got his own phone number, it can actually take several weeks before the number shows up in the all-powerful, all-knowing, DSL-ready database.

Once his number did show up, he decided to go with MSN, which in San Francisco uses the exact same lines as Pacific Bell at a significantly cheaper price. At the time, MSN was offering three free months of DSL service with an annual contract, a free modem, and no installation costs. Josh was assured that his line would be provisioned the first week of December, and that he would have his modem within two business days of the provisioning.

PacBell seemed to do its part, getting the line provisioned on time, but when Josh inquired about his modem, he was told that it would take at least three weeks to arrive. Turns out the 48 hours quoted was from the time the modem was sent out, and failed to take into account the processing time before MSN was able to get the modem out the door. Fortunately, after a bunch of phone calls, Josh was able to get his modem expedited, but unfortunately, the problems didn't end there.

AFTER COMPLETING his installation, it became clear that something wasn't quite right. Sometimes the modem worked, sometimes it didn't. After literally hours of troubleshooting, the folks at MSN's network operations center seemed to have isolated the issue: The modem was configured one way, while PacBell had configured the line in a different way.

It was unclear whether Josh simply needed a new modem, or if PacBell needed to reconfigure the line. But herein lies one of the major problems surrounding the Baby Bells: Even though they're required to provide lines to third-party carriers, they don't seem to have much incentive to troubleshoot said lines when problems arise. Think about it. If you're PacBell, and you're likely working with somewhat limited tech support resources, who are you going to help first? A PacBell DSL customer, or an MSN DSL customer who happens to be using PacBell's line? Exactly.

Compared with many other broadband users, Josh didn't even have it that bad--at least his ISP isn't bankrupt. But service like this isn't going to help broadband Internet access earn the same type of acceptance as, say, cable TV. After nearly two months of sporadic DSL service, Josh finally got some good news from AT&T. Seems like his neighborhood really is broadband-ready now (though it's hard to know for sure, since AT&T's system has continued to show his house as being wired, even after the on-site technician alerted the company to this error back in November).

Well, an installer is scheduled to come out in about a month, and Josh is keeping his fingers crossed. For now, he's keeping his semi-functional DSL line active, just in case, because as any broadband junkie knows, some broadband is better than no broadband.