• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, August 25, 2005

Verizon and Yahoo! made headlines this week with their new co-branded DSL service, which will be offered at just $14.95 a month. The package appears to make broadband available at competitive -- and in some cases cheaper -- rates than dial-up access.

But consider this fact: The cut-rate service provides for downloads at just 768 kpbs and uploads at the slow-as-molasses pace of 128kpbs. While the download speed is faster than the Federal Communications Commission's definition of broadband -- a mere 200 kpbs -- 768 kpbs still is pretty sluggish.

In fact, it's so sluggish that it might do a disservice to "broadband" to even call it that.

While 768 kpbs should be faster than dial-up, consumers still likely will be surprised at how relatively long it takes to, say, stream videos at that rate.

The Minute has a cable modem at home; in theory, this service is about four times faster than the new Verizon-Yahoo! service. Yet even the Minute's home connection can be frustratingly slow compared to other broadband lines we've used at work.

A recent report by a coalition of advocacy groups -- Consumers Union, Consumer Federation of America, and Free Press -- points out that what passes for "high-speed" in the United States currently is far slower than other wired countries. For instance, states the report, in Japan a 26 mpbs costs $22 a month, while in France, an 18 mpbs line runs for $38 a month.

Increased broadband use can only benefit the online world, but won't happen until consumers believe that high-speed significantly improves their experience. For that reason, the cheap-and-slow service being marketed by Verizon and Yahoo! might backfire. If U.S. consumers decide to give DSL a try based on the new cheap rates, but end up with a service that still leaves them impatient, they might well end up deciding there's nothing all that special about broadband.