DSL's undue marginalization
This post has been brewing in the queue for a while — at least since last year when I was preparing to move into Apartment 3. Since I am preparing to move again, and will be turning in my Mediacom equipment this week (along with ten thousand other IC customers thanks to the annual Great Flux), I thought it was time to finally write it.
Throughout my time in California, and for the last year at Apartment 3, I have enjoyed the Internet with high-speed cable service. While logged in for work, I could upload files to the submission/production system while listening to banging Essential Mixes of yore on YouTube (I will get to that later). It was broadband-style multitasking, and the only sluggishness was likely request delays on the other end. It was awesome.
My parents, however, have DSL. I used it during that gap between returning to Iowa and moving to Apartment 3, and am using it now during my temporary stay in their basement. And as much as Mediacom would like me to think it is slow and unreliable, I have to say it is just as good as having access through cable — albeit a tad slower.
I think DSL is perfectly suitable for what I do and for normal Internet usage. As with my cable service in Cali and at Apartment 3, I can check work email, upload files, and listen to the sickest beats I have ever heard — all at the same time. Perhaps my experience is unusual, or perhaps the local service is better than what it is elsewhere, but I think Mediacom is pissing into the wind when it bashes DSL.
Of course, I am exponentially more patient than a lot of Internet users. Part if it is my mentality and part of it is having used dial-up for over a decade.
My family’s first computer was a Macintosh Performa 600CD. (It was, I believe, one of the first Apple computers with an internal CD-ROM drive. Instead of having a tray, it had a special CD “caddy.”) We used it without a modem until Christmas 1995, when my parents gave me a 14400 bps modem. Thus began our 10 year love-hate relationship with dial-up.
When we wanted to get on we dialed-up, always accompanied by the annoying dial and screech of connection, and hogged the phone line — which was practically forbidden when my dad was on-call during the winter. We eventually got a second line and were perfectly happy (except for failed and dropped connections) until websites became too extensive to load quickly and I wanted to download mp3s. Despite upgrading to 28800 and 56000 modems, nothing improved; the Internet was advancing well beyond the capacity of dial-up. For years it took me the better part of an hour to download a single song, and I remember staying up all night to monitor large file downloads. It was tedious, but I put up with it. (“You’ll get dial-up and LIKE IT!”) Instead of paying for Internet service in college, I used the university’s off-campus dial-up service for free. (Hoo-ray free dial-up! My tuition dollars at work!) My mom took advantage of it, too, when I moved home for my last two years. Eventually we splurged and got DSL — and have been thankful ever since.
Like I said, despite all the flack it receives from the cable companies, DSL is perfectly fine for normal Internet usage. It is fast and reliable and does not deserve to be marginalized, though that is the name of the game in advertising.
Throughout my time in California, and for the last year at Apartment 3, I have enjoyed the Internet with high-speed cable service. While logged in for work, I could upload files to the submission/production system while listening to banging Essential Mixes of yore on YouTube (I will get to that later). It was broadband-style multitasking, and the only sluggishness was likely request delays on the other end. It was awesome.
My parents, however, have DSL. I used it during that gap between returning to Iowa and moving to Apartment 3, and am using it now during my temporary stay in their basement. And as much as Mediacom would like me to think it is slow and unreliable, I have to say it is just as good as having access through cable — albeit a tad slower.
I think DSL is perfectly suitable for what I do and for normal Internet usage. As with my cable service in Cali and at Apartment 3, I can check work email, upload files, and listen to the sickest beats I have ever heard — all at the same time. Perhaps my experience is unusual, or perhaps the local service is better than what it is elsewhere, but I think Mediacom is pissing into the wind when it bashes DSL.
Of course, I am exponentially more patient than a lot of Internet users. Part if it is my mentality and part of it is having used dial-up for over a decade.
My family’s first computer was a Macintosh Performa 600CD. (It was, I believe, one of the first Apple computers with an internal CD-ROM drive. Instead of having a tray, it had a special CD “caddy.”) We used it without a modem until Christmas 1995, when my parents gave me a 14400 bps modem. Thus began our 10 year love-hate relationship with dial-up.
When we wanted to get on we dialed-up, always accompanied by the annoying dial and screech of connection, and hogged the phone line — which was practically forbidden when my dad was on-call during the winter. We eventually got a second line and were perfectly happy (except for failed and dropped connections) until websites became too extensive to load quickly and I wanted to download mp3s. Despite upgrading to 28800 and 56000 modems, nothing improved; the Internet was advancing well beyond the capacity of dial-up. For years it took me the better part of an hour to download a single song, and I remember staying up all night to monitor large file downloads. It was tedious, but I put up with it. (“You’ll get dial-up and LIKE IT!”) Instead of paying for Internet service in college, I used the university’s off-campus dial-up service for free. (Hoo-ray free dial-up! My tuition dollars at work!) My mom took advantage of it, too, when I moved home for my last two years. Eventually we splurged and got DSL — and have been thankful ever since.
Like I said, despite all the flack it receives from the cable companies, DSL is perfectly fine for normal Internet usage. It is fast and reliable and does not deserve to be marginalized, though that is the name of the game in advertising.
