Notes From the Epicenter: Dumped in the Slow Lane by DSL

Andrea Dudrow

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There was a time in San Francisco when having DSL was even cooler than having one of those Sony robotic dogs. Mentioning your new DSL service was guaranteed to make you the center of any cocktail party conversation. “I wish I had DSL,” envious friends with dial-up connections would whine. People would look at you with a new glint in their eyes. You were high-tech, you were an Early Adopter, you were Web savvy. You were way cool.

But, as San Francisco techies eventually realized, to be really cool you’ve got to mix the new school with the old. That’s why the hippest Web designers drive around in old Ford Falcons and Dodge Darts. That’s why the coolest new-media mavens buy their clothes at Community Thrift. That’s why the slickest new-economy zillionaires spend their money at Mission district dive bars like the 500 Club and the Make Out Room. And that’s why I’m switching back to an old-school, low-tech dial-up Internet connection.

The Whole Truth
That and that my DSL service sucks. Turns out my DSL’s maximum throughput (which I measured using the handy meter at www.2wire.com) is about 171.4 Kbps. Granted, that’s more than 56Kbps but a heck of a lot less than the 1.5 Mbps (that’s MEGA bits) that DSL is supposed to be able to provide at its best. But that’s not such a big deal. Slow I can deal with, so long as the thing works.

My DSL problems began almost as soon as I had the DSL card and service installed, just more than a year ago. It took three separate technicians to install it correctly, during which time I was forced to borrow the dial-up services of a friend who lives down the street. The connection worked for about a month, and then began to shut down, inexplicably, every time it rained. It took about three or four more technicians to determine that I had something called a bridge tap. Apparently, a bridge tap is something that happens when the telephone workers are gathered around that big box in your neighborhood, the one with all the wires inside. While they’re busy pulling and pushing and plugging and unplugging, sometimes wires get crossed, and whammo, you’ve got yourself a bridge tap.

What this means (at least in my case) is that my phone line sounds like a fax machine (whine, screeeee, whine, static, static, static) and my DSL crawls along at about 14.4 Kbps. It takes a good month and about six technicians to fix this problem. I know; I’ve had this affliction three times. The reason so many technicians need to be sent out (from Pacific Bell, which owns all the telephone lines in the San Francisco Bay Area) is that these people don’t communicate with each other. Which is a little wacky for people who are supposed to be keeping my lines of communication open. Here’s a typical string of conversations with Pacific Bell technicians: (Disclaimer: These are generally very nice people, and I place the blame for their inability to fix anything on the large bureaucracy that employs them rather than on their own technical skills.)

Technician: I understand you’re having trouble with your DSL line.
Dudrow: Yeah, it keeps crapping out on me and my phone line is staticky.
Technician: Well it looks like you’ve got a bridge tap. I’ll have to send an outside line guy.
Dudrow: Swell.

Next day…

New Technician: I understand you’re having trouble with your DSL line.
Dudrow: Yeah, it’s got a bridge tap.
New Technician: Well, I can’t fix that. They’ll have to send an outside line guy.
Dudrow: Yes. Please do that.

Next day…

Another New Technician: What seems to be the trouble with your DSL line?

And this costs me $40 a month. Still, DSL is getting more and more popular by the day, and columnists from Salon and ZDNet say the technology will soon outpace cable modems as America’s broadband of choice.

Getting Up To Speed
If you’re one of those people who likes to do a tome’s worth of research before making any purchasing decisions (wise in the case of DSL, as most ISPs make you sign a one-year contract), there are a slew of resources on the Web: Everything DSL is just that, while DSL Life tells you what you need to know to realize that coveted DSL existence. [Editor’s note: Try DSL Reports, too, for unbiased information about DSL providers.] There’s even a DSL Forum that meets every so often to talk about the future of everyone’s favorite broadband medium (everyone but me, that is). And if you really want to get into the early adopter game, go get the skinny (the fat?) on wireless DSL.

But if you do go the wireless DSL route, you’ll be going there without me. I’ve officially crossed the line into old-school hip, at least as far as my Internet connection is concerned. (That and the bars I frequent.) I’m going back to a 56Kbps modem and a reliable, if slow, dial-up connection. And when, a few years down the pipeline, DSL becomes old hat, then maybe I’ll think about taking it up again. For now, I plan to lead a narrowband existence.

Read more by Andrea Dudrow.