From TNPC issue #4.10...

High-speed Internet Connection: What To Do When Yours Goes Down - Part 3

by Lee Hudspeth
May 17, 2001

In two prior issues I covered what you can do when your high- speed Internet connection goes down (see TNPC #4.06 and #4.07). In #4.07 I asked you to complete a survey and a whopping 607 of you kindly did just that (thanks much). In this article I cite the statistics that I found most interesting, and draw what conclusions I can based on this type of straw polling.
Part 1:
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/410/tr.cgi?lee2
Part 2:
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/410/tr.cgi?lee3

The majority of you--meaning, the survey respondents--use cable (64%), followed by DSL subscribers (34%) and other (2%). At least two-thirds of cable/DSL subscribers have been using your current ISP for more than six months and there's no significant difference between the two modes on this dimension (75% cable, 65% DSL).

Not surprisingly, since the survey was targeted at cable/DSL subscribers who presumably already have a functional connection, very few of you said that you cannot get cable/DSL at your current location (less than 3%). As a group I had expected some "mode switching" from cable to DSL or vice versa, but fewer than 4% of you report having switched.

I am definitely NOT surprised by the high frequency of connectivity and email disruptions. 18% of cable subscribers and 20% of DSL subscribers report regular disruptions in your Internet connection ("regular" defined here as more than one downtime incident per month). 25% and 18% (cable and DSL) report regular email disruptions. It's a shame that connectivity and email infrastructure isn't yet as reliable as POTS (plain old telephone service) dial tone. On the flip side, a surprising number of you report never experiencing a connection being down: 14% and 26% (cable and DSL). 17% and 32% (cable and DSL) report never having lost email service.

The cable ISPs fall far short of my expectation that a good high- speed ISP should offer free dial-up access: only 10% of cable subscribers have such access versus almost two-thirds (61%) for DSL subscribers. But for all those ISPs that do offer free dial- up, most of you have found that it works (84% cable, 96% DSL).

Note: for the one-third of you who know that your ISP provides free dial-up but haven't tested it yet, you owe it to yourself to do so!

There was no single ISP with a dominant share of this subscriber base. The ISP with the most customers in this group is AT&T@home at about 13%, that's out of a total of 150 different ISPs.

If you're interested in how I quickly parsed 600+ formatted email messages--many with different length text-based responses to open-ended questions, into a structured database for analysis-- read this issue's Featured Product, ParseRat.

You can reach Lee Hudspeth at:
mailto:leehudspeth@TheNakedPC.com

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