The phone company is saying I will be better off with their "dedicated" line for my computer than I am with my broadband (comcast), Should I switch?

I have no expertise in this area,but, as usual, that doesn't stop me from throwing in a few thoughts...whatever the phone company says is a lie...there i said it. More seriously, what kind of connection is the "dedicated"line? DSL? if so, fugetaboutit. You can also compare upload and download speeds and actual cost. Keep in mind DSL speed is highly variable in practice.

I live in an area where it's dial-up or DSL. Why is ModernClassic so negative about DSL? Of course, it is expensive to install and to maintain and our local phone dictator -er, company - has a monopoly. What happens when a storm brings the phone lines down? Why is DSL speep variable in practice? Is there a URL for novices to get better informed?

That's "speed," not "speep," which is what I say when I get my monthly Telecommunations bill.

If the choice is between dial-up and DSL, by all means DSL is the better option. But skfinkel alrady has cable modem and the phone company is trying to get that customer to switch to DSL.

Around here DSL seems to be spotty in terms of speed. Is that a function of distance from phone co. operations?

skfinkel: it's very simple to solve this. compare the cost of the two offerings, and the speed of the two offerings. they're both probably very similar: roughly 50 bucks a month for roughly 3 megabits per second. generally speaking, DSL (phone system based) internet access will claim a lower speed than cable, but cable rarely gives you the full speed it's claims

here's a good online test to see how fast your connection is: http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/

ultimately, if you're satisfied with both your speed and your price, then keep in mind that your phone company just wants your money.

gailcalled: yes. distance from local phone switch to your house directly relates to quality of line service. this is because the phone company runs fiber optic cable to the local switch, then copper wire from that switch to all the phones in the area. fiber optic is *very* fast and copper is slower, so the more copper your data travels over, the slower it moves and the more often a particular bit of data has to be re-sent to ensure a complete transfer.