Beyond Cable and DSL for High-Speed Internet Access

You probably already have broadband Internet access, perhaps cable or DSL. But do you know about the other options for high-speed connectivity, ones available today or in the near future?

You might think you’ll never need anything else, but what if your cable company decides you’re using more bandwidth than you should? What if your Internet connection isn’t as reliable as your work requires? What if you decide to ditch city life for a B&B in the country — and your new neighborhood has no cable or DSL?

You do have other options, but don’t get too excited. There’s nothing much to jump up and down about here, except perhaps fiber to your house, and that’s not widely available… yet.

Satellite – If you live in one of the estimated 10 to 15 million households out of reach of cable or DSL, the logical choice is satellite Internet service. Satellite suffers from delays due to the long distances involved (this is known as latency); overall performance is said to be comparable to DSL, though the speeds are usually much slower.

Satellite is also more expensive than cable or DSL and usually requires a significant upfront investment for equipment and installation.

Fiber to the home (FTTH) – Those with the opportunity to sign up for fiber to the home should count themselves lucky. Verizon offers its FiOS service to homes in select areas and claims downstream speeds of up to 30 Mbps and upload of up to 5 Mbps, depending on where you live. You can get 5Mbps up/2 Mbps down for $39.99 a month with a one year agreement.

Because this requires laying fiber optic cable into your neighborhood and then to individual houses, it’s only available to a very small subset of the population right now. Even if you do qualify, it might take a long time to get it installed and ready to go.

If Verizon isn’t already providing telephone service in your area, don’t count on them for fiber to your home. Some of the smaller, independent telephone companies are providing this service. Those in the Sacramento area can check with Surewest. Otherwise, check with your local telephone company to see what their plans are for FTTH.

Broadband over powerline (BPL) – Wouldn’t it be great if instead of having all new infrastructure put into your neighborhood, you could just use the handy electrical wires that are already there? Power lines reach almost every house in America, potentially offering a solution other than satellite for the households outside the bounds of DSL and Cable Internet. But power lines weren’t designed for data transmission, and some in the know call power line cables “inherently unsuited for carrying the frequencies BPL uses.” In rural areas, a potentially important market for BPL, the economics may not make sense, due to the need to install and maintain repeaters.

The jury’s still out on BPL even as the money flows in. You probably ought not to count on it as an answer to your Internet access needs right now or any time in the near future. It just might help the power companies read their meters without sending people out to your house — but it’s unlikely to solve our Internet access needs, especially with our rapidly escalating demand for bandwidth-hogging videos.

Cellular 3G/EVDO – So forget the wires and cables, whether they’re already there or not, and look instead at the phone in your pocket talking to that cell tower in the distance. 3G means third generation, and that’s where you can get some mobile Internet access at DSL-comparable speeds. With EVDO Rev A, you could see speeds of 3.1 Mbps up/1.8 Mbps down, as long as everyone near you doesn’t decide to take the Rev A train at the same time. Let’s see how Om fares with his new Sprint EVDO Rev A card. Does it live up to the promise? Earlier generation EVDO cards don’t even reach DSL speeds and showed annoyingly high latency.

Cingular/AT&T has also introduced higher speed 3G service in some cities and is on target to cover most major US cities by the end of 2007. The 3G cards come with very stringent rules, and wireless companies frown upon excessive use of their wireless connections.

WiMAX – Yes, reader, there is a fourth generation (4G) mobile wireless solution, and it’s WiMAX. It offers greater range than wi fi (up to 30 miles range for fixed stations and 3 to 10 mile range for mobile), making it of interest to cellular providers like Sprint, who has said it will offer WiMAX services in 19 cities by April 2008. We might see average speeds four times faster than EVDO service, bringing true broadband mobile wireless into our lives.

Wondering whether your city’s on the list for Sprint’s initial rollout? Broadband paparazza Katie Fehrenbacher scored the details at CTIA last month. Another fixed wireless option for those who can’t wait is Clearwire, which has launched its broadband wireless service in a few cities and plans to cover most of the country over next few years. They currently use pre-WiMAX equipment but will eventually upgrade to the WiMAX standard when the gear is easily available.

Municipal wireless – Maybe you live in one of the 154 U.S. cities that have wi fi networks across some part of their metro areas or in the 132 with networks proposed or under construction. Different cities are choosing different revenue models for citywide wifi services ranging from advertising-based to government-funded to subscriptions with tiered rate structures based on income.

If you want to use your city’s wi fi network for Internet access in your home, you’ll likely need to buy equipment to bring the signal inside the house and perhaps sign up for a subscription to the service. If your work depends on Internet access, you might not want to put your trust in your local government or their subcontractor until they prove their reliability. Try it as a backup, maybe.

Bottom line: unless you can get fiber to the home, go for cable or DSL when available. Which should you choose? It depends. Cable download speeds can be up to 2 times faster than DSL. Cable, however, provides shared bandwidth so if you have a lot of YouTube-crazed neighbors you might be better off with DSL. DSL is distance-sensitive, so where you’re located relative to the phone company switching station matters.

If you’re curious what download and upload speed you’re getting right now, try this Flash-based speed test. Then tell us what results you get. You can post the details of broadband options in your city and the speeds you get on Broadband Wiki.