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Summary - DSL may no longer be the best way to connect to the Internet. This month, Rawn Shah investigates Sprint's new broadband offering and finds it's fast, easy to set up and, best of all, affordable. (2,100 words)
have had DSL in my home office for about 18 months now, and I've decided to ditch it. Why, you ask? Am I having too many connection problems? Does my ISP have uplink bandwidth issues? Are my networked computers responding badly to the DSL modem?
Actually, none of that. My always-on DSL connection has gone down about three times: once when a blackout powered down the Cisco 675 modem and twice when my ISP was upgrading its network equipment and the Cisco 3810 that my line connects to. I've also had a fairly steady 768 Kbps bidirectional stream. It certainly is worthwhile for those 1 GB downloads I have to do occasionally for reviews.
One major security risk with the Cisco 67x series DSL router is that the encryption for your security password is simply a one- letter transposition (i.e., c translates to b), making it totally worthless securitywise. However, I use mine as a bridge, so it isn't really possible to telnet or connect to the device directly except through a physical serial line.
My ISP's lines aren't the fastest (several T1s), but that hasn't caused me any major trouble. My computers don't mind the DSL modem either, except that as a bridge the link has to constantly send 43- byte ATM cells every three seconds or so to the virtual router at the other end, causing constant periodic traffic on an idle LAN.
So what's my beef? Money and power. Actually, the cost of the DSL service and the traffic speed that I get. US West charges about $80 per month in my area for a 786 Kbps symmetric DSL line. On top of that, my ISP is charging about $250 per month for the Internet service. That may sound reasonable to a regular business (which I am), but most home users would rather not pay as much. Except for those living in major cities on the east and west coasts, most people have to pay exorbitant prices for high-speed network services. That...