As a kid in Los Alamos, the mesa I lived on was far enough from the central office[1] that it had some loading coils between us and them. This meant that we cou

As a kid in Los Alamos, the mesa I lived on was far enough from the central office[1] that it had some loading coils between us and them. This meant that we couldn't get DSL on that mesa. The mesa across the way didn't have the loading coils, and thus was able to get DSL. I remember the jealousy of my friend being able to download DOOM WADs in a couple of seconds, while I had to schedule them, or convince my dad to download them on the much faster connection at LANL. Eventually we managed to get either an ISDN line or a T1 line, I cannot remember which, but shortly thereafter Cable internet became available, and rendered the whole problem moot. [1] Los Alamos had one central office, with a big microwave relay in the top of it: https://i.imgur.com/Lcfj9oA.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/Lcfj9oA.jpeg