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Unfortunately, you cannot use more than one DSL modem on one line at all. This is in no way, however, a means of profit assurance or gouging from your provider, it has to do with the way that signal is encoded.
Line telephones operate on a limited frequency range (which coincides with the requency range of the human voice) Telephone lines, however are capable of carrying much higher frequencies than those of the human voice, and this limitation leaves a lot of unused bandwidth.
Digital Subscriber Lines (DSL) were developed in the late 1980's as a means to utilize this unused bandwidth for a constant data connection that doesn't interfere with the operation of normal voice telephony. The development was not marketed, however, until the late 90's when ISDN and T1 connections began to face competition from cable companies.
When DSL is installed in your neighborhood, a DSLAM (DSL Access Multiplier) is put at the end of a high bandwidth copper or fibre line. The DSLAM acts as an interface for the DSL modems attached at that end of the loop (the modem you have) and assigns channels (cuts of the previously mentioned unused bandwidth) to each. When your modem is "readying" itself, it's communicating with the DSLAM, negotiating its channels and requesting an IP address from the main server (at the exchange).
The DSLAM is not a terribly brilliant device, however, and is only able to differentiate on a physical connection basis. Therefore, if you plug in a second DSL modem, neither modem will be able to properly negotiate themselves with the DSLAM (as their two signals will interfere with eachother) and neither one will be assigned channels or IP addresses.
Hopefully this has cleared up a little confusion for everybody on the way DSL works. And finally, for Shermie27: They aren't geeks, they are electrical engineers and pretty good ones too. If you want to be angry at the phone company, you should be more outraged by their monopolistic tactics and shady business practices.
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