> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Richard Lynch > Sent: Saturday, September 04, 2004 4:39 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: ISDN Jack Installation > > > Donald J. O'Neill wrote: > > month. If you later switch to DSL and want to use your ISDN line(s) > > for that, you're still paying for an extra line (in my case I was > > paying for two ISDN lines). If you use DSL, you can use your > > As a guy who has not one, not two, but THREE (3) defunct (or never worked) > DSL lines to his apartment, I gotta say "go cable modem" > > Cable TV companies have a broad customer base, with a stable steady income > to weather them through
weather them through what? You mean, weather them through the times that all their Internet subscribers get sick of their crap and pull their Internet service? Cable companies have little interest in Internet because they make the bulk of their money off selling tv content, payperview, and porno channels. The Internet connectivity is just a way they can get a cable line into your house and get your name so they can pitch their higher margin tv programming to you. Cable companies are monopolists who have the tv content regulated by local governments, as it should be. But the Internet content, although it's a monopoly too, they have managed to wiggle out of getting regulated. As a regulated monopoly a cable company can never lose money. But, just because they cannot lose money doesen't mean they are rolling their profits back into infrastructure investment in their networks. There is no guarentee that any part of this stable steady income is ever going to fund any Internet infrastructure investment in a cable company. There might be if Internet under cable was regulated, but it's not. -- The odds on cable TV suddenly not being > available at your location in anything but truly rural or even remote > areas is nil. > Same is true of DSL. > DSL? Fah. You're lucky if the company you call today for a price quote > is still around in 12 months. > Of course, there are some drawbacks to Cable such as you don't generally get a static IP number. DSL providers by contrast usually have them available, save the garbage grade ilec isp's. Also, look at the acceptable use for cable, servers of any kind are prohibited. Just because you were burned several years ago doesen't mean the DSL market is still the same. Northpoint and Rhythms both went bankrupt, but Covad is still running, and ILEC dsl is perking along fine. Sure there are some smaller ISP's who were provisioning over ilec DSL who gave it up after they couldn't make money on it. But they are all out of the market now, and the people left in the DSL market are there for the long haul. And sure, there's some areas that DSL cannot reach, and that cable can. I also know of areas that cable cannot reach that DSL can. In most major markets you can count on at least two regional ISP's who are provisioning over ILEC dsl, you can count on MSN and maybe one other national ISP also provisioning over ILEC dsl, and the ilecs of course themselves have their own ISPs that provision over ilec dsl, and to top it off you can also count on att/earthlink/mindspring provisioning over covad DSL. And today, covad is radsl over voice, they don't require a separate phone line anymore. By contrast with the cable companies you can count on 1 monopoly ISP and if you don't like the way they run their network, you can go to hell. Ted _______________________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"