[lug] Universal DSL modems

[Sean Reifschneider]

On Fri, Oct 26, 2007 at 04:29:39PM -0700, karl horlen wrote:
>was buy a "universal" DSL modem that would "just work"
>with the variety of providers I'm likely to face over
>my lifetime.

That's a good one.

I guess your choices are:

   You expect to have a *REALLY* short life.

   You expect to always be stuck with 1.5mbps service over a single copper
   pair.

   You want to buy a DSL modem that includes support for not just many of
   the current technologies but also future ones that haven't been invented
   yet...

Do you really want to spend hundreds of dollars right now so that at some
point in the future you don't have to spend another $50 on a new modem?

I'm kind of making light of your request here, but the truth of the matter
is that your request simply doesn't make sense.  If such a modem exists,
which I don't believe it does, it would be at least $500 and more like
$1,000.

>difference is it's brand spanking new.  So the
>technology hasn't changed :-)

5 years ago?  I don't know about that...  I've had DSL for over 10 years,
in the same house, same location, same Central Office, and the modems we
use now would not work with the protocols used back then.  This is why you
can't pick up one of the dirt-cheap Cisco 675s and use it now, you have to
use the 678 or similar (which are not dirt cheap, because they aren't
bricks).

And to be honest, we should be using DSL-2 by now at least, there's no
excuse for us not being there already.  You apparently didn't hear that
they're now talking about copper pair technology in the hundreds of megabit
range.

Sean
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