[IP] The Dark Side of (Broadband: Pick Cheap or Speedy)

[Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Actually I would love to use DSL rather than cable BUT for some totally 
unknown reason Verizon will not offer me DSL even though neighbors have it 
and my old apartment in Pgh 1 lock away had it. Even the Verizon installer 
did not know why.

Dave

From: David Mercer <radix42@cox.net>

Dave, I've been a Cox Cable subscriber for over a year.  Before that, I'd had
a number of DSL ISP's that I connected to via Qwest DSL since 1998.  Cox is
indeed very fast, when my link isn't saturated with scanning traffic from 
various
worms and script kiddies looking for holes in my network.  And I mean 
saturated.

Various calls for broadband ISP's to firewall consumer networks may have merit,
but in the case of cable modems, it's a shared network in each cable segment,
which is most like Ethernet with a hub instead of a switch.  DSL providers can
truly filter out unwanted inbound traffic, as each customer is on a point to
point link.  But cable providers can't because of the type of physical network
in place.

Which is why, the slower speed notwithstanding, I'm thinking about moving back
to DSL.  Smaller local ISP's that you connect to via the RBOC's DSL networks
will happily firewall your link however you like if you are a 'business class'
customer.  Larger carriers will of course only do this for much larger 
customers.
But what good does a 3-5Mbps link do me when it's clogged with hostile nonsense
traffic?  I need it for work, not just for play.

Thanks,

David Mercer
Tucson, AZ 

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