Transatlantic Cable: My DSL Hell

When my 'significant other' and I moved a couple of months ago, we decided to get a DSL line for our new apartment. We decided that our palatial penthouse suite wouldn't be complete without a fast, always-on Internet connection to help with the essentials in life, such as the FishCam, the CatCam, the online grocery delivery service, etc.

After all, the figures seem to speak for themselves: while a typical dialup account costs about $20 a month, a DSL connection would cost $39 a month and should be several times faster. I'd like to say that it is faster, but the fact of the matter is that we are still waiting for it to be installed.

The reason for this lies in the way that DSL works over here. After some deliberation, we decided to get our connection from a company called PhoenixDSL. So I contacted them, and asked them how long it would take to get a DSL line in. After all, I figured, it's not really that complex a thing to install: a few wires here and there, a couple of boxes at either end and we're away.

Our new phone line had taken all of 10 minutes to get sorted, and the US is a country that hates to wait for things - after all, this is the country that invented the concept of fast food and paying at the pump for petrol with a credit card. However, the answer from Phoenix was less than cheerful: installation usually takes approximately 60 calendar days, and apparently it can often take much longer.

** The waiting game **

The process (and the reason it takes so long) works like this: PhoenixDSL provides the Internet connection, but not the connection between our apartment and the phone exchange where they have their equipment: that's done by a company called NorthPoint Communications.

But NorthPoint doesn't actually provide the physical piece of copper wire that goes between us and the phone exchange: that's done by Pacific Bell, the local telecoms monopoly equivalent of BT. And like BT, Pac Bell is a huge, bureaucratic dinosaur of a company that takes several days to notice that you've just kicked it in the behind and even longer to turn around and do anything about it.

So PhoenixDSL takes my order, and asks NorthPoint to wire me up. It in turn asks Pacific Bell to run a new phone line to my house for the DSL and, once that's done, NorthPoint (hopefully) turns up, wires up the phone line and plugs in the DSL modem. Then (and only then) does PhoenixDSL throw the switch and get us online.

Confused yet? It certainly took me several attempts to understand how it all works. We are still waiting for Pacific Bell to do its thing, and PhoenixDSL can't tell me when the whole process is going to finish. It doesn't know when Pacific Bell will install the phone line for the DSL connection: the first it hears is when it's actually done it. So all we can do is wait. And wait.

** The moral of the story **

Now the point of all this is that it's something of a cautionary tale. The idea of deregulating telephone networks and unbundling the local loop (as they have done in the US) is that it makes things easier and more competitive, which it does.

But what it also does is make things more complicated: instead of dealing with one company, you end up dealing with several, many of who don't like each other and seem unwilling to even speak to each other.

And the other problem is that whoever you buy your DSL connection from, you'll end up dealing with (and waiting for) the same people in the end. In my case, it's Pacific Bell, but in yours it will probably be BT. And I'll bet that you'll face the same problems: once the local loop is unbundled in the UK in 2001, I'll bet you that BT won't be suddenly leaping into action to let other telecoms companies offer services over its network.

I'll bet that it will drag its feet and spin things out for as long as it can to protect its monopoly. I'll bet you'll have the same problems that I'm having: you'll end up waiting for things to happen while the various companies argue about whose fault it is.

And I'll be the one sitting in my nice new apartment saying "I told you so", as I enjoy my speedy DSL connection. Assuming anyone ever actually comes round to install it, that is...