Both technologies are expected to be high-growth businesses for years to come, despite a current slew of availability headaches and installation woes for consumers.
Cable networks are, by their nature, shared.
That is, many subscribers of cable Net access in a particular region connect to a designated amount of network capacity that passes by a residence. The ads highlight an esoteric technology debate that has been mulled by the industry for some time but may have less relevance for the average consumer. The speeds of both DSL and cable technologies are generally comparable, but the debate concerns the point at which a user gets a dedicated connection and how far from a residence that dedicated connection extends. Pacific Bell's ads illustrate a fictional cable modem-based neighborhood that has been reduced to retaliatory vandalism over use of the Internet. Depending on the physical distance from the central office, phone companies often will guarantee consumers a certain minimum Internet download speed because no other subscribers have access to that bandwidth.