Where true competition seems to exist for high-speed Internet access is not between the Bells and other DSL providers. Instead, it is between DSL technology and a type of high-speed access provided by the cable television companies via cable modems.
Cable more popular
Although the number of cable modem subscribers remains fairly low, the technology is more popular than DSL, in part because it has been in place longer and in part because there are fewer technical hurdles involved in providing cable modem service.
There were 4.7 million residential cable modem subscribers at end of the first quarter -- compared with only 2.2 million residential DSL subscribers -- according to the Yankee Group research firm.
"We should be their foot soldiers, going in and getting DSL customers for them so they can compete against the cable companies," Farmani said of the Bell companies. "But they treat us so badly we are encouraging our clients to sign up with the cable companies rather than the phone company's DSL."
One disgruntled customer is Jason Greene, a Web-site content manager who works from his home in Boulder, Colorado. Highly dependent on speedy access, Greene got his first DSL connection nearly three years ago. Qwest Communications, his regional Bell company, supplied the line, and Peak to Peak Internet, a service provider in Boulder, supplied his Internet service.
"One day it went down and didn't go up," Greene recalled. In that instance, Greene was without service for nearly two weeks. Even when the link was restored, for several months his DSL connection periodically continued to fail.
"I had no other option on my phone line if I wanted a high-speed connection," he said. "No one else could give me DSL service."
That changed a few months ago when Greene heard that cable modem service was available for US$45 a month through his local cable provider, AT&T. Now he has both kinds of connections, having kept the US$85-a-month DSL service because, he said, it is much faster than the cable modem for uploading large files.
In Los Angeles, meanwhile, Farmani of aNet has all but acknowledged defeat. He plans to shift his focus to operating Web sites for clients -- even if he is not sanguine about his business prospects. "Web site hosting is a very, very tough market," he said. "But it is not as tough as DSL."
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