| Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) exploded onto the scene in 1999, and three years later it has reached 10,000,000 customers. Soon, over 100,000,000 people will connect to the Internet through DSL, because the world wants fast, cheap access to the Internet. We report from the eye of a hurricane. The DSL landscape is constantly changing. For this book, however, we stopped and asked ourselves, what is most important for the user to know about DSL? We hope you find the result useful.
Three years ago, Dave created DSL Prime, which quickly became the industry newsletter for DSL. It was wonderful to be part of one of the hottest businesses on Earth. There were great hopes and plans, and many people got very rich very quickly. Companies went from IPO to $10 billion in months. Two years later, the same companies were near failure and we reported some of the agonies of 100,000 customers cut off in NorthPoint’s bankruptcy. This is a brand new, wide-open field. We reported what we learned from field technicians, customers, and CEOs. It was heady stuff when then FCC Chair Bill Kennard explained to us that he had personally made SBC’s commitment to universal service a requirement of the Ameritech merger approval. Joe Nacchio, CEO of Qwest, told us that video quality VDSL made economic sense, when every analyst was saying it was unaffordable. Now 50,000 homes in Phoenix are signed on to VDSL, and Qwest is considering how to expand. |
