No, I did not read the article . . . But, . . .
Yes, DSL speed varies by season . . . or rather, temperature.
But, this is really only the case for _aerial_copper_plant. Buried plant is nearly the same temperature year round.
Yes, but it is more susceptible to long-term water infiltration, which leads to longer-term speed drops. This is actually more difficult to work with and test for.
Copper pair resistance changes with temperature. And, therefore, the link speed of DSL will change depending upon the time of the year (temperature) and geographic location.
If there is a difference of but a few degrees of temperature year round, then no there will be no difference. But, if you live in the desert southwest or even the mid-west where the temperatures can be 70-120 degrees different between seasons or even 40-70 degrees different between night and day . . . you are going to have pronounced differences in link speed.
You might. Or you might not. Around here, it's not unusual to see a difference of a hundred degrees between summer and winter. Speaking from a few decades of experience working with telecom up here, I'd be tempted to say that either a circuit tends towards being problematic or towards being reliable, and that where I've been able to ascertain enough facts, there's a correlation with the age of the outdoor plant- but that's only a loose correlation.
Worst cast, your link speed might vary 10-20%. The longer the cable length from the central office, the more the variance will be. But, this is something that must be measured on a case by case basis. And, since much of the aerial plant has been replaced with buried plant, this really isn't much of a problem anymore.
Buried plant mostly has more consistent (maybe less severe) problems, IMHO. ... JG -- Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net "We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN) With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.