High-Speed Survival Guide

The phone rang. "Mr. Bass?" The voice sounded official. "Your house is glowing on our satellite photos." No wonder. I had two digital subscriber lines (DSL), a cable-modem connection, and an Internet-beaming satellite dish installed in my home office.

See, I'd been given a plum assignment: Get the four high-speed Internet connections installed and running. Then tell you how to do it as painlessly as allowed by law.

You'd think it was hog heaven for a technodweeb. It was--at least when everything worked.

No doubt you've heard tales of terror--canceled installation appointments, hosed PCs, and outages so long you go through Web withdrawal. I won't try to buffalo you. Some of the horror stories are true. At the same time, tons of people have had good experiences and are ecstatic with their pumped-up connections.

That's because the leap from 56 kbps to 1.5 mbps is an astonishing experience. Listen, broadband will intensify your Internet life like no other computing upgrade you've tried. How about downloading a 5MB file in less than 29 seconds, or 55MB in less than 7 minutes? How about no tying up a phone line or even dialing out--since your connection is always on?

Each high-bandwidth service has its own pitfalls and issues. I know, I've been through DSL, cable-modem, and satellite hell and lived to talk about it (just call me Mr. Bandwidth). I've also heard from nearly 400 business and home DSL users. Some of their tales are juicy.

DSL is the new darling of broadband: It's fast, it performs more consistently than cable, it uses your existing phone wires, and you don't share your connection with other homes. If you're close enough to the phone company's central office and the CO is DSL-enabled, it's available. But DSL demand is so high, many would-be users are put on waiting lists. Some installations require repeated visits by technicians. And--as in my case--solid connections just get flaky.

Up until this year, cable modem was easier to get than DSL, and cable installation has always been less harrowing. But cable modem suffers from security risks, just as DSL does, and bandwidth can be sluggish because you connect to a network, just like the local area networks that connect PCs in most workplaces.

Satellite modem is a terrific idea, but only if you can't get DSL or cable modem. While downloading is fast, satellite is one-way (at present) and usually requires analog modem uploads. ISDN? No way--it's expensive, not a continuous connection, and at 128 kbps, slower than molasses.

Fair warning: My allegiance is to DSL. I'll help you get the service, learn the jargon, and avoid installation problems. I'll also give you an understanding of the pros and cons, as well as pointers for figuring out which flavor of DSL service is best for you. If you're interested in a cable modem, head over to "Cable Modem: A Good Second Choice."