This is at the heart of why Verizon cancelled its purchase of Northpoint. It is why Northpoint is suing Verizon, and why some Verizon customers are suing over delayed DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) deployments. The ILEC (Incumbant Local Exchange Carrier)s actually WANT to delay DSL deployment. They don't want the technology to succeed too quickly because that would mean massive upgrades to field gear and cuts into profits. The only reason why any ILEC built out a DSL product line was because of competitive pressure from CLEC (Competitive Local Exchange Carriers)s and that darned Telecommunications Act of 1996, which they wanted so much at the time but now hate.
Via Robot Wisdom, [1] Why Your Phone Company Hates DSL [2]
Now that he mentions it …
I was happy with ISDN (Integrated Service Digital Network) when I had it, even if the price was outrageous (although I wasn't paying for it). When BellSouth [3] first offered ISDN, it was at a flat rate, but that didn't last when they had to provide universal ISDN service. So metered service came in to cover the installation costs to places like (need to find a remote Florida city).
But I lost my ISDN connection. Or rather, the party that was paying for it decided to pay for it no longer and the hours I keep on the Internet, I couldn't afford to pay those bills. So out it went.
I just hope my IDSL service stays up …
[1] http://www.robotwisdom.com/