Pennsylvania has substantial availablity in and around Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. Bell Atlantic is the primary incumbent, and is building out the network. while GTE is offering DSL in some of the parts of the state where it is the carrier. Covad and Northpoint are in Philly, and Northpoint in Pittsbugh, and some local services developing, including Jack Flash in the 570/610 area.

When a company announces a city, that means they’ve opened some but not necessarily all telephone offices to service. In addition, 15-50% of homes cannot be served, generally because they are too far from the telephone office or served through a digital loop carrier. DLC service requires a separate line card or other equipment, readily available but rarely installed in the first wave of DSL deployment. Therefore, you must check with the company.
    With five million new homes being passed each month, we do our best to keep this information current, but welcome updates. In addition, we would like to share your experiences. Send them to fieldreports@dslprime.com.

AT&T  is moving faster towards DSL than is obvious in most reporting. (Of course they presumably will use their expensive cable franchises for most consumer service, probably late in 1999.) Their own fiber backbone, along with the facilities obtained with the IBM Global Network, give them enormous capacity, while their acquisition of MFS gives them co-located facilities throughout many metropolitan areas. Their initial rollout corresponds to the Covad footprint, which already is over 13,000,000 homes passed, and it would be logical to expect them to locate DSLAMs in the MFS locations soon. Their first service is wholesale, going through ISPs, but they are also trialing retail with wide scale deployment possible this year. They’re targeting 9 cities on the east and west coast for the first deployment, but have committed to servicing 1200 CO’s (35,000,000+ possible customers) by the middle of 2000.

AOL  plans to offer DSL service starting this summer, reselling facilities from SBC, Bell Atlantic, and others. They should offer convenience and a competitive price, but the quality of your service will be dependent upon the backbone quality they provide, and their record is dismal.

Bell Atlantic/Nynex has committed to being able to serve 8,000,000 customers in 1999 with DSL, and 22,000,000 in time. In addition, with the pending purchase of GTE, they will have their own backbone. They’re deeply committed to DSL, knowing the future of the company is tied the competition for the home connection. “We’re going to beat cable,” proclaimed Managing Director Pete Castleton to the New York Times. They offer consumer service for $49, and ADSL at 7 Meg downloads for $179. Consumers will be able to purchase service from BA, from AOL, and from other ISP's to be announced, with pricing starting at $49/month for 640K downstream to the home and 90K upstream. They have not announced their plans or pricing for business hookups yet.

Concentric is a national internet provider with a strong commitment to quality, which resells local circuits from Covad and Northpoint. They have dedicated backbone capacity, a large web hosting service with an easy to use interface, and VPN security, and other services, and offer Quality of Service guarantees. Our affiliate, Generation 3, is a dealer for Concentric.

Covad, probably the largest national wholesaler, sells through Flashcom, Concentric, and literally dozens of local  providers. Pricing varies depending upon which ISP you sign up with, and  they' offer consumer level service as well, promising competitive pricing of $40-80 for 384K to the subscriber and 128K upstream from the subscriber. They have the widest  footprint of consumer priced services at this time having passed 13M homes and businesses by June. Generation 3, DSL Prime’s affiliate, works with several Covad ISPs.

Flashcom is probably the largest national reseller, offering service from Northpoint, Covad, Bell South, and Bell Atlantic to back their claim of the largest national footprint. They have a goal of over 1,000,000 customers, and are offering aggressive pricing to make that goal. (Conflict of interest note: DSL Prime’s affiliate, Generation 3, is a Flashcom VAR.) They are spearheading the mass marketing of DSL both to businesses and residences.

GTE, soon to be part of Bell Atlantic, plans to offer DSL throughout their network. Their advertising claims, with  substantially more truth than Al Gore, to have created the internet. (Their BBN division did, in fact, manage most of the early Internet architecture.) They are already one of the largest  internet providers, including provisioning the actual service delivered for most of the customers of AOL. Their backbone, which also supports the much higher quality service they offer to  businesses through BBN (now called GTE Internetworking), stretches 12,000 miles in the United States and extends around the world. By the end of the first quarter of 1999, service was provisioned in more than 400 central offices. By the end of 1999, GTE plans to offer ADSL in more than 30 markets in 17 states, served by approximately 550 central offices that support 10.1 million customer access lines – one of the nation's largest deployments of ADSL. 

Jack Flash is a local company, with service in Dallas, Clarks Summit, Tunkhannock, Towanda, Troy,  Wellsboro,  Mansfield, PA and soon in Trucksville, Harveys Lake, Centermoreland, Bangor, Pen Argyl, & Saylorsburg,

MCI/UUNet/Worldcom is the a giant ready to emerge to become a national leader. They have provisioned 800 offices, possibly the largest deployment in the nation, but have been nearly invisible in the market, choosing to service first their own enterprise customers. They announced in 1998 they would offer consumer service, with few details, and have not yet elaborated. UUNet was one of the true pioneers of the internet, and they remain one of the leading vendors of dedicated internet lines. They've also made a deal with Rhythms to sell 100,000 lines. Their public announcements are ambitious, but have few details. Look for something big

Northpoint, from San Francisco, is one of the three largest national DSL providers,  wholesaling their services through retail  ISPs. Flashcom and Concentric are NorthPoint’s two largest dealers, while Microsoft and Radio Shack have signed on recently. They have only announced business service. Generation 3, DSL Primes affiliate, works with several Northpoint ISPs.

Rhythms, in Denver, is one of three main national data CLECs, promising a high quality of service to business customers. They have investments from MCI  and Microsoft, and are opening facilities in most major cities.

Verio is a national web hosting service that has purchased ISPs in several regions. They plan to resell DSL nationally.