From: "Glenn Meadows" 

DSL is a high frequency signal that rides on the wires from the CO to your
home, and is distance dependant.  The farther away you are, the weaker the
signal is, to the point where if it's too weak, you don't get any service.
That will also determine the maximum speed you can get on any connection.
Also the condition of the wiring in your house, on the way to your house,
etc.

If you have noisy phone lines when it rains, you'll have poor DSL service,
typically.  Also, you're going to have to install filters on EVERY device
that connects to your internal phone wires, at the wall jacks.  That
includes wall mounted phones, fax machines, answering devices, and all
phones.  Typically you'll get a set of filters as part of the install kit.
This blocks the DSL signal from entering those devices, which will degrade
the signal, since those devices all are wired to the same phone line.

In My Opinion, while DSL claims "no shared service", that's true,
as far as it goes, which is just back to the central office, where you data
needs are grouped into all the other subscribers, and are aggregated
together.  If the provider has bandwidth X from the CO to the internet, and
sells 20 times X (or higher) in subscribers out of that CO, then if
everyone is online, and doing downloads, then you're sharing that X
bandwidth to the internet among all other users that connect thru that CO.

George can talk about "oversold DSL" upstream.  It's a balancing
act.  Same as phone service.  There are models as to how many people are
typically on the phone at any given time, and that's what the system is
designed to handle.  On holidays, like Mothers Day, you used to get the
"I'm sorry, all circuits are busy" message, simply because 3 to 5
times (or more) the number of people were trying to use the phone at once.

On cable, you are "shared" at a much closer point to you, but
current cable system improvements really allow for much higher bandwidth,
both at the user end, as well as the aggregated local users.  Comcast is
now offering normal speeds in the 6 mb range, with "premium"
services almost double that.  Those are download speeds (headed to you, not
upload (sends)).  Typically, sends are capped in the 256-384kb range. 
Comcast offers a business class service that allows higher upload speeds,
as well as higher download speeds.

In NYC, one of the cable companies is now offering 10mb/sec both ways to
the internet, with a fiber cable feed into the building, for $1500/month. 
If you need the bandwidth, that's a cheap price.

You may find that while you can get DSL from DSLExtreme, the max speeds may
not be what you might expect, since you could be on the fringe.

And, it's not a 3 mile distance "as the crow flies", it's
"as the wires fly" from the CO to your house that matters.

With Cable, the data runs in several of the high cable channel frequencies.
Recent cable improvements now allow some really high speed data transfers.
I think for some time, the cable people will be 1 to 2 steps ahead in data
speeds from DSL.

--

Glenn M.
"Ellen K."  wrote in message
news:2konp29j8o2t6b5akrul0f8onkget2gucd{at}4ax.com...
> That's interesting about the DSL speeds, thanks for the information.
> Why is that, anyway?
>
> On Tue, 2 Jan 2007 22:57:48 -0600, "Glenn Meadows"

> wrote in message :
>
>>The speed issue with multiple users doesn't seem to be a serious issue
>>here,
>>and I'm in an apartment complex, with lots of users I suspect, haven't had
>>any issues.
>>
>>Your call, just mentioning the options, that's all.
>>
>>If you're on the fringe of the distance, that will affect your maximum
>>speed
>>on the DSL, anyway.  The max speeds go down the further away you are,
>>which
>>is why there's a distance requirement.
>

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