You've endured modems for decades, cursing all the way. You've experimented with ISDN, and it was barely worth the hassle. The average business is strung with miles of copper wires—it's about time they did some good. DSL (digital subscriber line), long the dark horse of high-speed networking, is now ready to deliver. For real. Telecommunications carriers of all sizes are rapidly expanding their DSL service areas, and DSL subscribers are poised to rocket past cable modem users, thanks to the new G.Lite DSL specification. Soon even America Online and MindSpring will offer nationwide access to their services via DSL. But more important, rapidly falling prices and easy installation bundles are making DSL too tempting to resist.
Asymmetric DSL (ADSL) offers fast downloads (up to 1.5Mbps) but currently guarantees only modest upstream speeds, the same as ISDN (128Kbps). But ADSL's big consumer boom is the wake-up call the business DSL market needs. And those market divisions tend to blur when it comes to high-speed DSL. Somewhere in the spectrum of DSL choices is a cost-effective offer that will work for you, whether you need to feed Net access to a family, a small office, or a home office.
Dial Tone, Please Much has been made of the fact that DSL operates over existing phone wires. But will you be able to get all the services you want through your phone jack? Most consumer ADSL services from the Baby Bells will happily share a line with your phone or fax. And sharing won't stop at voice and data. U.S. West's VDSL (very high–speed DSL), which is in field trials in limited markets, offers data, digital television, and multiple dial tones on a single line. In 2000, Sprint's Integrated On-Demand Network (ION) will also offer competitively priced integrated DSL services.
But while the Baby Bells and other traditional phone companies are licensed to provide voice and data over one line, upstart DSL provid ers can send data only over a separate line. Unless you call a Bell for DSL, you'll need a visit from a line installer to get a service running. In our experience, these visits are rarely painless.
The good news is that many of these new, data-only DSL connections can be added to your home or office using existing wiring in the walls and underground. By letting you avoid the cost of installing a second line, DSL can be almost as cheap as a dedicated analog line plus an ISP account.
Field Test While G.Lite's key selling point is easy installation, most current services require a technician.
And here's where the DSL market starts to get tricky. Order Pacific Bell's FasTrak DSL service (in California only), and you'll probably be visited by someone from Prime Services Group. Flashcom (available in major metropolitan areas) is what's known as a service aggregator; it used an installer from Covad for our test installation near Chicago. Telocity (in eight major cities) has an even more complicated arrangement of contracted service and installation agreements. For our Telocity Interchange DSL installation, the crew was subcontracted from Rhythms, which provides its own DSL service in California and several metro areas.
For simplicity, Pac Bell FasTrak ADSL is our big winner. The company was able to complete its installation within two weeks of the original order, and its technicians also pop the included Ethernet network interface card (NIC) into your PC, configure it, and test your system. The DSL splitter and setup installation (NIC setup not included for our tests) took about an hour.
Our two installations near Chicago were not as seamless. The phone company had to run a digital circuit to the telephone junction box outside the building. From there, Covad took over, finishing in about an hour. But it took a 20-minute call to Flashcom to get ISP configuration information.
Telocity's installation took two hours, in part because it had to correct a short circuit created earlier by the phone company and also because Rhythms, its partner for DSL installs in that area, was unfamiliar with Telocity procedures. An illustrated guide and software that automatically configures your network settings got us up and running quickly. However, we had to check with Telocity's ISP partner, INSnet, for tech support to verify our e-mail configuration.
Ditch Your Modem If you've suffered through a progression of crummy modems, very little will compare to the thrill of seeing files transferred at T1 speed—service is just as fast and much more consistent than the typical shared T1 in offices. To see if the companies' performance claims were true, we tested various common Internet tasks, including sending and receiving e-mail with large attachments, downloading files, loading Web pages, and playing multimedia files.
Because of Telocity's extremely high maximum bandwidth, it wasn't surprising to see it looking good in all the tests. But overall speed is a result of a number of factors, including the ISP's mail servers, and Telocity took some hits in that department.
Flashcom came out ahead in the Web browsing tests, and it loaded short files, like Web-site images, the fastest. Pac Bell's mail servers responded quickly to send and receive requests.
Rhythms's rate-adaptive DSL (RADSL) service won in the e-mail sending category. Rhythms was also the least affected by dips and surges in speed caused by peak periods and Internet conditions.
On the throughput front, we found a few surprises. ADSL's download speed depends on your distance from the local telephone company's closest central office. Pac Bell's service, which guaranteed at least 384Kbps downstream, averaged 690Kbps. Symmetric DSL (SDSL) is less affected by distance. Flashcom's service delivered its promised 384Kbps in both directions; Telocity's service, which claims a maximum throughput of 1Mbps, delivered only 600Kbps on average. Rhythms RADSL lived up to its promise of 384Kbps downstream and 408Kbps upstream. Brainstorm IDSL (ISDN-like DSL; available only in the San Francisco Bay Area) also kept its modest promise: roughly 144Kbps in both directions.
Telocity is the only SDSL service we tested that is targeted exclusively at residential customers—no business addresses allowed. But its most painful restriction is the limit of 1GB of upstream data per month. After that you pay a premium of $20 per gigabyte transferred.
In spite of a few small bumps, the services we tested lived up to their promise of fast, affordable dedicated Internet access for families, home offices, and small offices. Service options for larger businesses are also available from most of these and many other companies.
Look, Then Leap Like mobile phone service pro vid ers, DSL providers want a contract. Flashcom requires a two-year service contract for its advertised pricing; Telocity and Pac Bell ask for a one-year contract. Since both Flashcom and Pac Bell charge a $100 fee to upgrade the speed of your service, it's important to know your needs before you start.
Despite the appeal of SDSL's high guaranteed upstream bandwidth, there's just no better deal than services like Pac Bell's FasTrak ADSL, which is aimed at small offices and home offices. (Most of the Baby Bells offer similar packages.) Its higher installation cost is quickly offset by the much lower monthly fee, and you get performance close to that of Flashcom.
Keep in mind, however, that ADSL is more affected by your distance from the phone company's central office. Before you sign up, check your distance. If it's approaching 18,000 feet, the rough ADSL limit, you may want to go for SDSL.
Pacific Bell FasTrak ADSL
Rating Five Stars
Verdict The best high-speed Net access for small offices and home offices.
Pros Inexpensive; data and voice on one line; two e-mail addresses.
Cons The $49.95 fee applies to small offices and home offices only.
$49.95 per month; $199 installation and hardware (as tested) / Pacific Bell / (888) 884-2375
Flashcom SoloSurfer SDSL
Rating Four Stars
Verdict Business services with pricing to match.
Pros Smooth (and free) installation; multiuser environment is easy to adapt to.
Cons Two-year service contract required; big price jump from ADSL.
$129.95 per month; free installation and hardware (as tested) / Flashcom / (877) 352-7426
Rhythms RADSL
Rating Four Stars
Verdict Big bandwidth but pricey.
Pros Solid overall performance.
Cons Expensive installation.
$150 per month; $850 installation and hardware (as tested) / Rhythms / (800) 749-8467
Telocity InterchangeDSL
Rating Four Stars
Verdict Could be a winner when it becomes more widely available.
Pros Extremely good value for giant bandwidth.
Cons Residential service only; restrictions on monthly upstream traffic.
$49.95 per month; $100 installation (as tested) / Telocity / (888) 489-4736
Brainstorm Networks IDSL
Rating Three Stars
Verdict IDSL option is slow, but better services are available from Brainstorm.
Pros Offers affordable multiple IP address packages.
Cons IDSL option is slow.
$139 per month; $399 installation and hardware (as tested) / Brainstorm Networks / (650) 567-6244
Checklist: DSL Service
- Get your service provider to answer these questions before you make the jump to DSL:
- One line or two? Ask the DSL provider if its line will have a dial tone or be data only. Most Baby Bells offer voice and data (and more options in the future) on one twisted-pair line; new wiring costs extra.
- Who does the configuring? Ask the DSL provider if its installers will configure your system for access and test it before leaving. If not, ask it to send your configuration information before the line installers arrive.
- Who handles support? If services are provided by separate partners, make sure you have technical support contacts for both your ISP and your line provider before installation.
- Does it work with my ISP? Shop around for several ISPs that can potentially offer service over the DSL line you have installed. That way, if you're dissatisfied with your initial provider, you can switch ISPs.
- Is the equipment compatible? Most important, before the DSL installer leaves, check to make sure your existing telephone lines still work.
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