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Dow Jones & Company Inc Apr 1, 2003 UNTIL RECENTLY, getting a high-speed Internet connection at home required the patience of a monk. Even then, it wasn't available in most neighborhoods -- including corners of tech-savvy San Francisco.
But after years of installation horror stories, companies that sell high-speed "broadband" services -- which include both cable and DSL phone lines -- claim they have eliminated the hassles. Top cable-TV companies say broadband is now available as an option to more than 80% of all cable customers, twice as many as in 1999. Phone companies, which sell DSL lines, now offer them in more than 60% of the country.
One result: Cable and phone companies, which are struggling to gain market share, are bombarding customers with promotions.
This past month, Earthlink Networks rolled out a batch of new TV ads urging people to sign up for DSL. In Atlanta, Comcast is sending "e-mails" that pitch broadband services to users of its most sophisticated cable-TV boxes -- and in a twist, the e-mails are actually viewable on people's TV screens. Cable companies are also offering packages that sweeten the offerings on your cable box (think multiple HBO channels) if you get a cable Internet connection as well.
But is it as pain-free to get wired as the broadband companies claim? And which is better, DSL or cable? To find out, we signed up for four high-speed connections -- two cable and two DSL.
We quickly learned that installation is still spotty. One company, EarthLink, took a month to get us up and running in San Francisco. The two cable companies we tried, Comcast in Atlanta and Starpower in Washington, D.C., both had to send technicians to our homes for several hours, forcing us be home to let them in. The Starpower cable guy tracked mud across our carpet. (He apologized.)
Bottom line: Service is better than it was a few years ago, when it could take months to get a hookup. But it's not as good as it should be.
Cable and DSL hookups both work essentially the same way: You get a special modem, which plugs into your computer and into the wall. Then, you run the installation software on the accompanying CD.
But we found there are key differences between cable and DSL services. When it came to installation, for instance, both DSL providers we tested, EarthLink and Verizon, had one big advantage over the cable companies: Neither one needed to send a technician to our house. Instead, they simply mailed us a kit with pretty much idiot-proof instructions: Hook up the modem. Install the software.
By contrast, cable hookups generally require more house calls.
Even so, cable is often the better option for consumers. For one thing, the connection speeds tend to be faster than DSL (although cable networks are also more susceptible to slowdowns if all of your neighbors start surfing at the same time). Cable also has a more basic advantage: The service is available in more parts of the country.
Either one costs roughly $40 to $50 a month, or about twice the cost of a traditional dial-up connection, though DSL tends to be slightly cheaper.
Doing price comparisons can be a nightmare because to get the best deals you often have to buy a package of other services, like local-phone service or a bundle of cable-TV channels. Starpower, for instance, offers a $177-a-month "platinum" package with a smorgasbord of multiple phone lines, cable TV and Internet services -- all of which would cost more if bought separately from other companies, the company says. One of the best prices we found: Verizon is selling DSL for $34.95 a month if you also buy its local and long-distance services.
For consumers, broadband's appeal is obvious: No more napping while you wait for photos or music to download. Broadband typically claims to be at least 10 times as fast as a dial-up. In other words, if a song usually takes five minutes to download, with broadband it takes only 30 seconds.
Consumers are responding. Last year, cable and DSL companies added 6.4 million subscribers -- their biggest year ever -- for a total of 17.4 million users according to Leichtman Research Group.
The fastest install was Comcast, which had us up and running in less than two business days. Still, there was some teeth-gnashing. The installer showed up at 2:40 p.m. without a crucial piece of hardware for our PC, or the necessary equipment to run the actual cable to our house -- even though the phone rep for Comcast knew we needed both. We had to zip out to Best Buy and buy the PC hardware (a networking card; $35). The cable guys came back 31/2 hours later. A Comcast official said she wasn't sure what caused the problem.
Both our DSL providers, EarthLink and Verizon, mailed us "self-install kits," which took a few days or a week to arrive. Our biggest problem: We couldn't figure out why our Verizon modem didn't seem to work. It took an embarrassing phone call to Verizon to fix the problem: The modem wasn't getting any electricity -- because we had left our wall light switch in the "off" position.
EarthLink took the longest to activate our service, turning it on about a month from when we first called. The company says it's because our order was complex: We were actually transferring our DSL line from one house to another. Still, the installation kit made it easy to get online once the service was finally activated.
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Christopher Oster, Carla Anne Robbins and Eleena de Lisser contributed to this article.
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Cranky about customer service? Write us at Cranky@WSJ.com.
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| Service/Price: Comcast High-Speed Internet Cable, Atlanta; |
| $60.95/mo., including $3 cable-modem rental. |
| Speed Promise/Reality: Download "music, video and photos in seconds." |
| True: Our link was 18 times as fast as a typical dial-up. |
| Human Touch: Advertises $42.95 for Web access -- but that's only for |
| folks who already have cable. We couldn't haggle them down. |
| Snafu: Cable guy didn't bring everything needed to wire our home -- |
| even though we said what we needed when ordering. |
| Comment: Fastest Installation: We ordered on a Friday and were |
| surfing by Monday evening. |
|
| Service/Price: Verizon Online DSL, New York City; $29.95/mo. for |
| first six months, first month free; $49.95/mo. after that. |
| Speed Promise/Reality: "Significantly faster" than a typical modem. |
| True, at about 13 times dial-up speeds. |
| Human Touch: Spent 30 minutes on hold on a customer-support line. |
| (Lesson: Don't call in the evening -- because everyone else is.) |
| Snafu: Service in our New York neighborhood went down one day, but it |
| was back in action the next. |
| Comment: We were stumped when modem didn't work, but a tech helped us |
| figure out our electrical socket was dead. |
|
| Service/Price: Starpower Cable, Washington, D.C.; $54.95, including |
| cable-modem rental. |
| Speed Promise/Reality: "Up to 50 times faster than . . . dial-up |
| modems!" Not quite: Ours was only about 20 times as fast. Still fast, |
| though. |
| Human Touch: Starpower promised a Spanish-speaking installer. The guy |
| who came didn't speak a lick of the language . . . |
| Snafu: . . . But he did, however, track mud on our rug. |
| Comment: Bundled with cable TV and phone service. Result: A bill so |
| complex we can't figure out if we're saving money. |
|
| Service/Price: EarthLink Networks DSL, San Francisco $49.95/mo. (but |
| on sale for $21.95/mo. for first three months). |
| Speed Promise/Reality: Speeds as fast as 18 times regular dial-ups. |
| We topped 19 times. |
| Human Touch: We waited an hour on hold to order service. |
| Snafu: It took roughly a month to get our line activated. |
| Comment: Longest Wait for Hookup: But once we got it, the actual |
| installation was pretty easy. |
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