A class-action lawsuit filed against SBC Communications Inc. accusing the company's Southwestern Bell unit of failing to deliver promised transmission speeds to digital subscriber line customers is the latest chapter in the nationwide woes plaguing DSL. As tales of installation delays, unreliability, and unrealized transmission speeds mount, the hoopla surrounding DSL is quickly turning into frustration.

Analysts say that while service providers are doing all they can to deliver DSL as promised, they have a long uphill climb in front of them. "The vendors who designed DSL did not design it to work on outside loop infrastructure," says Lisa Pierce, VP and research leader at Giga Information Group. "It was designed almost in a vacuum."

According to Pierce, the biggest problem is the lack of standards that would ensure interoperability between vendors and thus more choice for DSL subscribers. She said she doesn't expect the situation to improve soon. "The problems can only be solved by spending lots of money," she says, adding that with residential service bringing in just $40 to $60 a month, the impetus to make the needed investments isn't there.

Scott Heinlein, a consultant for research firm TeleChoice, agrees that the problems with delivering DSL service won't go away soon, but he says broadband subscribers don't have any comparable alternatives. "Even though DSL's not perfect, at the speed they're delivering and the prices that people are paying, there's no better solution," Heinlein says. He expects to see more lawsuits like the one against SBC.

The suit against SBC, filed in Nueces County, Texas, alleges that Southwestern Bell failed to deliver promised data transmission speeds, and capped access speeds to newsgroups and email in order to preserve precious bandwidth. SBC released a statement declining comment on the case and maintaining that many of the elements contributing to bandwidth delivery are out of the company's control.

But Geoffrey Berg, an associate with Berg & Androphy, the Houston law firm that filed the suit, says SBC is missing the point, and that Southwestern Bell hasn't made the effort to deliver on its promises, and in fact did the opposite. "This doesn't have anything to with Internet congestion or server problems or anything other than their intentionally throttling back their service," Berg says. "People simply aren't getting what they've paid for."

Pierce says the suit likely will be ineffective even if it's successful: "Even if they made their case, the likelihood that SBC could do anything more than they're already doing probably wouldn't be there."