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I've been led to believe (by conversations here on HN as well as elsewhere) that DSL in the US is operating under that regime -- the phone companies are require

I've been led to believe (by conversations here on HN as well as elsewhere) that DSL in the US is operating under that regime -- the phone companies are required to lease them out, so you can have 5 different providers all selling you DSL over the same wires. But DSL bandwidths strongly lag behind cable modem bandwidths because the people laying the wire have no desire to upgrade for the benefit of their competitors. How much truth is there to this?

exelius 12y ago
DSL in the US used to operate that way until it failed spectacularly due to the reasons you mention and the FCC reclassified DSL as an information service.
- bitJericho 12y ago
  I don't know when that happened, but when I had DSL about, oh 6 years ago, they practically begged me to sign up with MSN. I think they got a commission for it. I chose just to go straight with the company who owned the equipment, my phone company.
  - exelius 12y ago
    I think some resellers were grandfathered in when it was reclassified, but not many of them were left at that point anyway. And you're right, they probably did get some sort of commission: providing the service itself was so unprofitable (even with line sharing) the DSL ISPs had to find additional revenue channels.
rhino369 12y ago
You can use the local loop, if it exists. It's just not cheap than ADSL, which is already cheap as fuck. Though AT&T and Verizon are ripping out the connections if they bring fiber to your house, and you can't share that line.
toast0 12y ago
It's a little bit complex now. The incumbent carrier (ILEC) is still required to lease lines at the Central Office, but they used to be required to lease access to DSL delivered from remote terminals as well. AT&T still provides leased access to DSL delivered from remote terminals, but does not provide leased access to U-Verse, so companies leasing access can put their own DSLAMs in the central office and compete on speeds for users near the central office, but not in areas that are primarily served by remote terminals after AT&T rolls out U-Verse's ADSL2 and VDSL based DSLAMs; the leased access for users behind remote terminals is limited to 6mbps ADSL1. In cities which have been dense for a long time, like San Francisco, there are lots of central offices, and competition using leased access is feasible, but in cities where density is more recent, such as San Jose, there may only be one central office, and there's only a small area with feasible competition with leased access.

exelius 12y ago

DSL in the US used to operate that way until it failed spectacularly due to the reasons you mention and the FCC reclassified DSL as an information service.

bitJericho 12y ago
I don't know when that happened, but when I had DSL about, oh 6 years ago, they practically begged me to sign up with MSN. I think they got a commission for it. I chose just to go straight with the company who owned the equipment, my phone company.
- exelius 12y ago
  I think some resellers were grandfathered in when it was reclassified, but not many of them were left at that point anyway. And you're right, they probably did get some sort of commission: providing the service itself was so unprofitable (even with line sharing) the DSL ISPs had to find additional revenue channels.

rhino369 12y ago

You can use the local loop, if it exists. It's just not cheap than ADSL, which is already cheap as fuck. Though AT&T and Verizon are ripping out the connections if they bring fiber to your house, and you can't share that line.

toast0 12y ago

It's a little bit complex now. The incumbent carrier (ILEC) is still required to lease lines at the Central Office, but they used to be required to lease access to DSL delivered from remote terminals as well. AT&T still provides leased access to DSL delivered from remote terminals, but does not provide leased access to U-Verse, so companies leasing access can put their own DSLAMs in the central office and compete on speeds for users near the central office, but not in areas that are primarily served by remote terminals after AT&T rolls out U-Verse's ADSL2 and VDSL based DSLAMs; the leased access for users behind remote terminals is limited to 6mbps ADSL1. In cities which have been dense for a long time, like San Francisco, there are lots of central offices, and competition using leased access is feasible, but in cities where density is more recent, such as San Jose, there may only be one central office, and there's only a small area with feasible competition with leased access.