Comment on 56k.rip - The full 1996 dial-up experience
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 3 days ago DSL requires a short distance to the phone switch, and splitting one faster line would be cheaper than four phone lines.
DSL didn’t really come to a lot of the US because things are so spread out here.
OakTree@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
Eh. DSL actually negotiates across a bunch of different encodings, and g.dmt dropped max speeds in favor of reliability and it could be shot for miles. They were only getting 1.5 or 768, but it was still better than dialup. A random google search suggests 89% of the US population was within DSL range on legacy copper lines. If it wasn’t available you were way out there, or you were experiencing the lovely duopoly we have: the cable company beat the telecom to high speed in the area, so the telecom said fuck it for 5 years.
VDSL is when the extremely short distances started. By that time fiber was cheap enough for random backhaul runs but not ftth, so the battery(voltage) for the phone line still came from the CO miles away but the VDSL cabinet was practically in your backyard and data collected onto fiber from there.