For a number of years Verizon has been trying to get rid of DSL customers. Verizon just recently increased the price of its older DSL by $7 in an attempt to drive more customers to FiOS, Verizon wireless, or the cable company.

Unlike the other large telcos Verizon never upgraded DSL to the paired copper wire technology used by AT&T U-verse. In that technology, AT&T and other telcos have bonded together two copper wires and also used a later variety of DSL that, together, can increase DSL speeds to as much as 50 Mbps on perfect copper, but even to 25 Mbps on poor copper. Instead, Verizon put all of their investment into FiOS fiber and most of their DSL is from the very early 2000s. The older DSL that is still operating has speeds of up to 3 Mbps, with ‘newer’ DSL with speeds up to about 7 Mbps.

These are the speeds in urban areas and Verizon customers who live outside of towns get far slower speeds, often reported at near-dial-up slowness. And many of these rural customers have to worry about Verizon wanting to tear down their copper lines, leaving them with no wireline broadband alternative. Verizon is the only large telco that largely rejected the FCC’s offer for taking Connect America Funds to upgrade its rural DSL. Verizon has sold large chunks of its rural market to Frontier and the company has made it clear to the FCC that they would like to walk away from the rest.

If you’ve never read the customer reviews at DSL Reports it’s worth a look. This is a site where customers have been posting stories of problems with broadband for years – everything from lack of speed, poor customer service, slow repairs and pricing. For anyone that happens to have a fast broadband connection it’s an eye-opener to hear from homes that do not.

The FCC tries to paint the picture that there are many markets in the US that have at least two competitors. But when one of the two competitors is a telco trying to edge its way out of the DSL business it’s hard not to argue that a lot of the country really has become a cable monopoly for broadband. The households that stubbornly stick with DSL seem to be those that are willing to accept slow speeds for a lower price. But Verizon seems to want these customers to move on to some other alternative.

Even where the telcos are trying to make DSL competitive it’s a losing battle. AT&T put a lot of money into upgrading and selling its U-Verse DSL product. This was their alternative to building fiber and AT&T thought they could get a few more decades out of their aging copper.

But AT&T total underestimated the huge increase in household demand for bandwidth. The U-verse product uses the paired DSL product – with speeds generally between 25 Mbps and 40 Mbps – to serve both cable TV and broadband. AT&T quickly found out that this data pipe is too small for homes that want to watch multiple TVs or that today want to watch multiple Netflix streams. AT&T is remedying this by working feverishly to shift TV over to their new DirecTV platform, freeing up the full amount of U-verse bandwidth for Internet access.

We are not too many years away from the time when the myth that most urban markets have at least two broadband competitors will fade away. As household demand for broadband keeps growing there will be fewer and fewer people on DSL, and that exodus will be accelerated by companies like Verizon helping to push DSL customers out the door.

Verizon passes many millions of homes with its fiber-based FiOS. But that network has always been very patchwork in that it will serve one neighborhood while bypassing nearby neighborhoods. There is a slight glimmer in the FiOS story since Verizon recently announced that they are going to greatly expand FiOS in downtown Boston.  Boston is like most east coast cities where Verizon built a lot more fiber in the surrounding suburbs while largely ignoring the more costly construction in the city. But after having not built FiOS for a while the company surprised everybody by announcing this new fiber initiative.

The bottom line is that DSL is in its death throes. But like dial-up (which is still sold to millions of homes) there is likely to be DSL around for as long as the telcos don’t physically tear down the copper or pull the plug on the electronics. But it’s clear that Verizon, at least, is hoping for DSL to fade away sooner rather than later.