The practice of overselling DSL services at ridiculously low prices in an effort to gain market share could create enormous network congestion problems, inhibiting the reliability of the available bandwidth and essentially negating the advantages of having a DSL service. Some DSL vendors can charge a substantial price for the same equipment that another vendor gives away for free in a promotional offer. DSL can be disruptive to some 900Mhz telephones and may need additional filters for the telephone lines necessary for the security monitoring systems. Although DSL modems are usually included with the service for free to entice new subscriptions, the price of a DSL modem seems to change with the level of service. There is no visible reason for the price fluctuations because most all DSL modems can handle the maximum DSL speed which is 8MB per second, even though ADSL speeds are regulated by the government not to reach more than 1.5MB per second.
Prices normally reflect single-user with unlimited usage at a defined rate of speed.
According to IDC, a market analysis firm based in Framingham, MA, approximately 330,000 households in the United States were connected to the Internet via DSL in 1999, compared to 1,350,000 households with cable modems. By 2003, IDC estimates that the number of households with cable modems will have risen to 8,980,000, while DSL will have raced into the broadband lead with 9,300,000 households. Studies have shown DSL is growing faster than cable. Most Internet service providers are already talking about offering DSL to their business customers. Cable definitely is not winning the hype battle in the ISP world.