Can someone explain DSL costs to me?

Factual Questions
1

OK, I presently have a dial up at home and want to get DSL. Its available, but the costs are confusing me,making me wonder if the phone company is hiding some costs somewhere.

My present ISP charges about $20 a month for dial-up. For monthly DSL they would charge about $50. OKfinefine.

However, looking at the phone company I see they offer DSL a the spped I want for about $30 a month. They describe a few features (some of which I have no use for).

So what is my ISP charging the extra $20 for and what would I be getting for it? USENET access? A genuine connection? Close friendly service? Backup dial-up access? Or is my ISP just admitting to a cost that the phone company is hiding?

Usually I’m pretty good at this sort of thing, but I feel a tad clueless about it.

2

It really isn’t possible to answer this without knowing the specific companies and plans involved. Your best bet would be to call your ISP and ask what the extra money is for. It might include the price of the phone line, but that’s just a WAG.

3

The ISPs charge what the market will bear. The difference between $49/month and $29/month is how much the companies think they can soak you for.

All IMO, but I can’t think of a solid technical reason for the $20/month difference.

4

If you have the availability of Cable, weigh the difference between DSL and Cable. I have tried DSL on two different occasions in different locations and both times DSL was terrible. Since then, I have taken Cable which has been great for me.

5

dslreports.com has tons of info on DSL…

I don’t know about the extra $20. My DSL ISP buys their DSL from the local Telco & I pay more. Why? The telco one is for only 6 months & my ISP has great newserver & unlimited use & they do their own tech support. Try calling the Telco for tech support sometime :slight_smile:

6

You should check if they are really offering the same thing. One might be offering 600Kbps the other 1000Kbps. The upload bandwidth could be different also.

7

Is the $30 offer good for only a limited time? My ISP charges me $30 for the first year or so and if I choose to keep the service, it charges $50. I think it’s just a way for them to attract new customers.

8

When you purchase DSL, you must purchase DSL service from your local phone company as well as Internet access from an ISP. In this case, your ISP is likely charging $20 a month for their Internet access on top of the $30 per month charged by the telephone company for the line. It’s also possible that your telephone company offers bundled DSL and Internet service for less than the total price of a third party, just because they can make more money that way.

When evaluating DSL prices, always make sure the price you’re quoted includes both the DSL service from the phone company and the Internet access.

9

What Alereon said. Back when I had DSL, I paid about $20 a month for the phone line itself, plus about $30 a month for the DSL service on that phone line, plus another $20 for my ISP. But the phone company through which I had the DSL line kept trying to push me into a combined deal. They had some arrangement with MSN, so I could get the DSL and MSN as my ISP for like $40 a month.

10

Is your phone company Verizon? Because AFAIK, only them and some Californian telco (SMC?) charge that little for DSL. In the case of Verizon, it is a fantastic deal because they simply have the best DSL service in America. If you have the choice, there is simply no reason to shell out 50 bucks a month to Earthlink or MSN or whoever for inferior service.

11

"Is the $30 offer good for only a limited time? My ISP charges me $30 for the first year or so and if I choose to keep the service, it charges $50. "

I asked mine about this they said they would keep that cheaper rate in a year if they could get a deal from the phone company.

12

I was reading an article in the WSJ about DSL service in Japan. Did you know that the DSL service in Japan is 40 times faster than the DSL service in the states. It also costs much less. Only about $22 US per month! So I have to ask myself why can’t we have this kind of service here at the rate they are paying? I think I came to an answer----Outrageous Profit!

Anyone else think this might be the case?

13

The way I remember it was that the local ISP’s had to pay the phone companies for access to the lines and then they added their costs for the Internet connection. It was always a bit higher in cost. In my area about a year ago SBC/Yahoo combined to offer DSL at 40.00 and now it is 27.00. This has been a great success but the local ISP’s are being undercut pretty bad.

14

To answer the OP: The difference between what your ISP quoted you and what the phone company quoted you is most likely due to your ISP paying the line provision for you. When you get DSL, you get a line provision from the telco, and you buy access from a Global Service Provider (GSP). In some cases, your ISP charges you one fee, and pays the telco for your line provision. In some cases, you pay the telco for the line, and your GSP for access seperately.

The telcos use this to pull off some shady deals: For example, in the market my company serves, Qwest (pronounced Q-worst) is rolling out DSL and claiming you can get 640K down/256K up for $29.99/month for one year. This is simply not true. What you get is a line provision from Qwest for that price, and three months of free Internet access from MSN - after the introductory period, it’s $22.95 - $49.95/month, depending on the level of service you select. But they don’t tell you that up front.

As others have pointed out, if you have to choose, go with a cable provider. If you must get DSL, go with any ISP you can find that isn’t affiliated with the telco, even if it costs more. Most ISPs can deal with the telco more effectively than you can as an individual. This is important for fixing any of the many, many issues that can come up with DSL.

Of course, if you’re lucky enough to have a local provider offering wireless service, you’ll probably find it much better than either cable or DSL. Especially if you live anywhere my company serves. (/blatant plug)

So why is DSL so much better in Japan and Europe? Population density. It’s easy to deploy a high-speed network in an area where lots of people live - US cities tend to be more spread out, and the cost to get 7-20Mbit service to those areas is much, much higher. And, to some extent, the telcos are charging what the market will bear.

The “deregulation” of the telcos left us with the worst of all possible worlds: instead of one monopoly, we have many, none of which are interested in actually providing quality service. Which is why some providers are skipping the telcos entirely and going with fixed wireless. Heck, around here, the phone lines barely support 28.8K modems, much less 56K or DSL.