Competition between cable, DSL expected to drive costs downThe wait is over.

Astoria and Warrenton have a choice of high-speed Internet access providers.

Susan Trabucco, a local business consultant, contacted Qwest Monday and confirmed that digital subscriber lines, or DSL, were up and running. Qwest also announced that service to Seaside will be available Oct. 25. Cannon Beach will follow Nov. 28, Trabucco said in an e-mail. It will be the first time south Clatsop County will have high-speed Internet service.

The lines, which bring the Internet to homes, schools and businesses up to 40 times faster than dial-up modems, were installed as part of a $120-million statewide effort to connect rural areas with communications technologies enjoyed by Oregon’s urban residents.

DSL gives Internet users an individual access line, rather than sharing a cable connection with other users. Most importantly, Trabucco said, DSL gives users a choice of service providers. The competition will likely drive prices down.

Neil Christensen, whose family owns M&N Workwear in Astoria, welcomed Monday’s news. He began selling products such as Carhartt , Dickies and Ben Davis brand work clothes on the Internet a year ago and the online business is booming.

In the past year, retail sales have increased 4 percent, while sales over the Internet have grown 10 percent, Christensen said.

Advertising on the Web has attracted a multitude of new customers from near and far. He supplies clothes to a carpet cleaning service in Nevada, a T-shirt shop in Rodeo, Calif., and a guy who works on oil rigs somewhere on the East Coast. Also, locals find his store online and then drive down to shop in person.

Still, working on the business’ Web page was frustrating because of the slow, dial-up connection he was forced to use, he said. But with the DSL, which he said he would call to have installed at his business today, “the amount of work that can get done is exponentially increased.”

A “fiber ring,” which would link Clatsop County communications with Portland via a southern route through Tillamook County, is scheduled to be completed by Nov. 22, Trabucco said. Currently, a single fiber optic line channels all traffic from Cannon Beach north to the Columbia River and then to Portland. An errant back hoe showed the vulnerability of this one-way system June 30, 2000, when the line was severed, halting business transactions and some 9-1-1 service.

The fiber ring will provide service reliability, essential to attracting communications-driven businesses to the area. If another cut occurred, the system would automatically send data the other direction without interruption.

For Internet users outside the three-mile radius of central offices in Astoria, Warrenton, Seaside and Cannon Beach, remote DSL hubs will provide high-speed service. Eight remote hubs are planned, but placement decisions and right-of-way agreements will delay this part of the project until next year, Trabucco said.

Qwest has taken advantage of state legislation granting telecommunications companies pricing relief in exchange for wiring rural Oregon.

Qwest spent $50 million to wire schools statewide and $9 million to bring DSL to the northwest corner of the state. Similar projects across Oregon cost the company an additional $60 million.