Net Q & A

Question of the Month: February 2000

Because I am going to be working at home, I need a faster web connection than Prodigy, which is what we have.  There are so many other options that choosing one is confusing. If you have any guidance on the cheapest, fastest approach I would appreciate it.  

Answer

High speed Internet access is not just a luxury: it can make lawyers significantly more productive. This comes about partly due to the faster download speed, and partly due to the fact that most types of high speed access use what is called "nailed up" connections: they are always on. If you computer is on, you can always access the Internet instantly. When this happens, it becomes faster to use the Internet than paper resources.

The major affordable options for home high speed Internet access (sometimes called "broadband") are:

ISDN is much slower than any of the methods above, but it is an alternative for some people. Your options, and how much they will cost, will vary greatly, depending mainly on where you are located. All the options have advantages and disadvantages. 

Digital Subscriber Line

DSL uses the regular phone line coming into your home, in conjunction with special equipment at both ends of the line to give it an enormously higher information carrying capacity. DSL is probably best if you can get it, but phone company rollout has been very slow (they don't want to cannibalize their sales of much more expensive T-1 phone lines to businesses). Also, apart from phone company dilatory tactics, DSL quality deteriorates the farther you are from a phone company "central office" (phone company jargon for a sort of relay station), so even when the phone company is willing and able to sell DSL, it will not be available to many of their customers. 

Cable

Cable is next in order of preference. It's only available in a few places so far. Also, cable companies have a reputation for being technically backward, so many people prefer to avoid them. 

Possibly the biggest drawback is that everyone on a cable system shares the same connection. This causes two problems: security and bandwidth. It's much easier for snoops who are on your cable system to spy on your system, so most users need to install some sort of firewall system. Further, when many people are using cable, the connection speed is much more likely to deteriorate than when using the other options (because it is a shared system). 

Satellite

Satellite presently trails the other two options for affordable high speed Internet access, but for many locations there is no other practical alternative. 

The big advantage of satellite access is that it is available anywhere in the country, so long as you have a clear line of sight to the southern sky, where the satellites are located. The biggest drawback of satellite access is that you have to have a second method Internet access. The little satellite dishes are receivers only. To send a request for a web page, or to upload your e-mail, you have to send the information by some other method. The satellite download speed is very fast, but the upload speed is slow. This particular slowness is not necessarily that bad in itself, as most people download enormously more than they upload. A somewhat more annoying problem is that the roundabout process used introduces "latency," which means a little more delay than you are probably used to  between the time you type in a command and the time you begin to see the result.  

The satellite dishes are about 18 inches wide. If you want TV signal access as well as Internet access, ask for the "Direct Duo" equipment; the dish and ground equipment are a little different. 

Alternatives

Another option, ISDN, deserves a brief mention. Integrated Services Digital Network is another type of phone line, but it is much slower than the first three, and (in most parts of the country) significantly more expensive. Consider it only if none of the first three options are available to you. 

Some places (Michigan and Tennessee come to mind) have ISDN at reasonable prices. Most phone companies treat it as an expensive cash cow.  

More Information  

Getspeed.com has information on the availability of high speed connections in various areas.

A PC World article, "Broadband Blues," focuses on difficulties in obtaining high speed access, with suggested solutions.

Jerry Lawson

This page last revised: January 01, 2002.