InFocus: Broadband access--The good, the bad and the ugly

Broadband access demand is still greater than supply, but many issues still need  to be resolved before the horror stories end

During the past six months, broadband access horror stories have appeared in many publications. Terrible user experiences have appeared in publications like the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, describing the pain of getting DSL installed in only 153 easy steps. 

Despite the negative press for broadband services in general and DSL in particular, customer demand for broadband continues to far outstrip supply. DSL providers cannot install DSL service fast enough. Why? Because just like wireless phones in 1985, high-speed, always on Internet access is a service that people crave and that many are willing to suffer for.

On the Net Related Books

The negative attention to DSL has been painfully embarrassing for emerging DSL service providers. But successful DSL installation to date has not been an easy process. It often requires complex coordination among multiple (often competing) players. Too often, users have been informed that they “don’t qualify” for DSL due to loop length or telco line configurations.

Broadband continues to be the holy grail for small and medium-sized businesses, though, who can use affordable high-speed access to tap into business software running on application service providers (ASPs) that previously was only available to large enterprise customers. Voice and videoconferencing also become more attainable with broadband along with integrated communications services.

The Bridge?

The term, “bridging the digital divide,” was originally coined by Mitch Kapor, the founder of Lotus Development Corporation and later, with John Perry Barlow, the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The term refers to the fact that those who do not have high-speed Internet access are at an economic and social disadvantage in the new information economy. 

Politicians have now latched onto “digital divide” and are bandying it about for their own purposes. Not having high-speed Internet access has been compared to what happened when small towns were bypassed by the railroads and the highway systems. Economic and social opportunities are diminished.

They Want It Now

Despite all the talk about broadband, it is still not widely available--and won't be until the networks are completed over the next three years. Right now, location is everything in this market. Customers in large metropolitan areas are the ones with the most choices for access. 

There are three types of alternatives for fast Internet access--each with its own of limitations and issues:

• DSL over telephone lines
• cable modems over the cable system
• a direct line-of-sight wireless connection with antennae. 

If  a customer is served by a cable TV provider that has spend the money to upgrade its services to a two-way cable modem service, that customer can get high-speed, cable modem Internet access. Typically, cable modem service is offered only in the larger metropolitan areas. Because the cable systems often only cover the residential areas, this service is often not available for business users.

Cable modem service is both fast and cheap. On the downside, besides not being unavailable in many areas, cable modem users usually share the network with many others, which can cause the system to bog down at certain times of the day. Cable modems also usually offer faster download speeds than upload speeds, which can be an issue for users such as telecommuters that might need to send large files.

Broadband with DSL uses the telephone lines already in place. DSL puts digital signaling on these telephone lines to offer speeds up to 50 times faster than dial-up modems. One of the primary DSL advantages of DSL is that customers get a dedicated line, which eliminates many of the security issues of cable modems.

But there is bad news on the DSL front. Right now, DSL is usually only available within three miles of a telephone central office. Customers farther than three miles from the telephone office may have to settle for ISDN DSL. IDSL can go up to nine miles from a central office, but only has upload and download speeds of 144 kb/s.

The other bad news about any broadband high-speed solution is that it can be difficult to actually get it installed and running. Providers are getting better all the time at providing a great “customer experience” for broadband installation, but early users have been the guinea pigs who have experienced most of the horror stories widely reported in the press. 

Wireless Internet access is another option available from some Internet service providers on an unlicensed frequency. Some ISPs specialize in high-speed wireless. These wireless links are based on a line-of-sight to the master antennae only and tend to have problems with rain, fog, trees or hills. Because this option is still expensive, it is usually not offered outside of the major metropolitan areas.

While there are endless debates about which of the options is faster, better or more secure, for customers it often comes down to which high-speed access alternative becomes available first.
Dan Moffat is President of New Edge Networks, Vancouver, Wash. 
His e-mail address is dmoffat@newedgenetworks.com.

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On the Net

Broadband Internet Access
A page of information from the FCC

Broadband Access: 
Opportunities and Market Forecasts, 2000-2004
A market report from USAData.com

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Related Books

The First 100 Feet: Options for Internet
and Broadband Access (Harvard Information Infrastructure Project)
by Deborah Hurley (Editor), James Keller (Editor)
219 pages (July 16, 1999)
$26.95
Order this book.

Residential Broadband:
An Insider's Guide to the Battle for the Last Mile
by Kim Maxwell
400 pages, 1 edition (November 23, 1998)
$31.99
Order this book.

Broadband Access Technologies: 
ADSL/VDSL, Cable Modems, Fiber and LMDS
by Niel Ransom, Albert A. Azzam
400 pages, 1 edition (June 28, 1999)
$60.00
Order this book.

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