How to Choose a DSL Provider

Here are some accurate tips for how to parse DSL providers. First, check to see whether there are multiple DSL providers for your neighborhood. In some cases, the choice will become clear after you determine which DSL providers have central offices near your home or apartment.

If there is one dominant carrier in your neighborhood or city block, it may make logistical sense to tap into that service, since DSL quality deteriorates once you leave the central zone of coverage.

You should consider latency periods when shopping for broadband in general. However, most DSL providers won't give you hard and fast statistics on their latency times. The good news is that the vast majority of high profile DSL providers out there deliver low latency service. You can write to local message boards or get customer feedback by other means to assess whether the DSL providers and in your service area deliver on low latency promises.

Almost as important as comparing DSL providers is comparing DSL pricing plans. An ultra-high bandwidth program may make sense if you are running a small enterprise (50 plus people). However, most home users and small business owners can function well on lower priced DSL, since even medium to “low” bandwidth these days offers a capacious enough pipeline to load web pages, load emails, and do minor multimedia applications.

One exception might be if you require ultra fast upload times. Most DSL providers offer premium service to allow specialized users uploading privileges. But before you invest in fatter pipelines, talk to your DSL providers about alternative ways to get material onto the web or onto a server.

If you're only generally uploading one kind of big file — or if you are uploading volume information only once a week or once a month, you may be able to transmit this information to a third party, such as a hosting service, and thus save on your monthly DSL providers fees.

Finally, be aware of the load on your ISP. Even though DSL offers an escape from the “madding crowd” that plagues cable broadband users, traffic congestion can stymie service, particularly in areas that are sparsely covered by DSL providers.