| Author | Message | ||
     Phillip Perkinson (Rover4x4) Senior Member Username: Rover4x4 Post Number: 585 Registered: 02-2003 |
Cable or DSL? WHat is the difference? | ||
| Lewis Jones (Cutter) Senior Member Username: Cutter Post Number: 342 Registered: 10-2003 |
Here in Moab, you just have two high speed choices, Fake DSL (LAN)and Cable, the cable is a bit faster (my neighbor has it) than my DSL but it cost a bit more. Here the cable is different speeds for different prices, the fastest is more than twice as much as mine and not twice as fast... Now if your asking for a technical answer, i'm not your guy  | ||
| Phillip Perkinson (Rover4x4) Senior Member Username: Rover4x4 Post Number: 586 Registered: 02-2003 |
I think its all a conspiracy to rip people off just like cell phones. | ||
| Chris von C. (Chrisvonc) Dweb Lounge Member Username: Chrisvonc Post Number: 332 Registered: 07-2002 |
Cable can be much faster downloads providing everyone else in your hood doesnt jump on. Cable acts like a big office network. The more people that are on, the slower you get. DSL is a direct connection to the closest relay and your speeds stay pretty constant. But over all faster, a standard DSL package up against a standard Cable with no one else on it, you will burst faster on Cable. So many people got onto cable in my area that it got so bad eventually it was faster to just dial up to AOL directly. We switched to a professional package of DSL and have never had a speed problem. I prefer DSL after having been on a super shitty cable network here in my town, but I know people who have cable with no one else in the area and they blaze away. | ||
| Lewis Jones (Cutter) Senior Member Username: Cutter Post Number: 343 Registered: 10-2003 |
I should add that the cable is Comquest and the DSL is Frontiernet.net. Don't know if it makes any diff. with another company in another part of the country. | ||
| Paul D. Morgan (V22guy) Dweb Lounge Member Username: V22guy Post Number: 2268 Registered: 02-2002 |
Phil, If you are still in tarboro, you are not to far from me. In my area cable is the holy grail! Sprint called and asked me to switch to their DSL which runs 1.5 MB per second. While on the phone with them I ran several speed tests and I reached 3.5 MB per second. As I type this reply, I am connected at 2.9 MBS. | ||
| Phillip Perkinson (Rover4x4) Senior Member Username: Rover4x4 Post Number: 587 Registered: 02-2003 |
cool. yeah thats what I was thinking about is that DSL sprint was offering. So I guess cable is good. I want what we have at my college thats pretty damn fast. whats the fastest? | ||
| Joe M. (Little_joe) Senior Member Username: Little_joe Post Number: 281 Registered: 11-2002 |
Absolute fastest would be fiber from your house to the backbone, but you'll need a few dollars for that. I have cable and it's love/hate. As mentioned, it is shared bandwidth - so if all of your neighbors are on your segment, plan out when everyone's getting online. Ours maintains a pretty decent throughput, but they cap uploads at 128kbps. The big issue with cable is reliability. For safety reasons, telcos were mandated to engineer to 5 9's reliability - that's 99.999% uptime and similar call completion rate. By and large, they have engineered their DSL networks the same way, since they use the same wire pairs and access to the central offices as your home service. My cable company, which shall remain nameless *cough*Adelphia*sucks*, put their web, dns, and email servers in a non-hardened office building, or maybe a party tent. They are subject to lightning strikes, power outages, Santerian curses, wind - ours is out frequently and it's aggravating as hell. They have no conception of what it takes to provide reliable service, since their heritage is a non-essential consumer service. But they sure don't charge accordingly.  Hopefully some of the other cable companies are doing a better job. I'd get DSL in a heartbeat if SBC would charge anything near what Adelphia charges. joe | ||
| Alan Yim (Alan) Senior Member Username: Alan Post Number: 977 Registered: 09-2002 |
I've run both DSL and cable and am currently on cable but if I had a choice I'd probably go back to DSL. It's a bit cheaper but I like the fact that it's consistent. Cable goes up and down depending on the time of day and the number of people in your area registered on it. But having said that, when network traffic is quiet, it's very fast...just that those quiet times may not be convenient for you. In my opinion, for the best bang for your buck, DSL is better. | ||
| Alan Bates (Alanb) Senior Member Username: Alanb Post Number: 392 Registered: 07-2002 |
I am using sbc dsl, $27/month. Very happy with it, but not as fast as my previous cox cable, but then again sbc dsl is half the price as cox cable. http://telcomcomplete.net/sbc_yahoo.htm | ||
| Al Oliveira (Offroaddisco) Senior Member Username: Offroaddisco Post Number: 1662 Registered: 04-2002 |
I have the option for cable or 128k IDSL or a T1. I've said good bye to Cable and will never go back. For now I'll live with IDSL with more consistant and reliable service until I can get enough people in my area to split the T1 with me. The big reasons for me to stay away from cable (and this may not apply to you) is.... 1. They won't let me run a server of ANY kind (http, ftp, smtp etc.) 2. They were down more than the NASDAQ after the dot com bubble burst. (also not good if you have a web or mail server) 3. There were times when it was quicker for me to upload a file by dial-up modem. 4. Their idea of business class was "we'll give you ONE static IP" for twice what a dynamic IP account goes for. 5. Their idea of monitoring was wait until someone calls to complain that the service is down (no kidding!). And they don't even know what an SLA is. The issue with Telco's five 9's won't always apply to data since xDSL, ISDN and T1's only use the last mile copper and not the same switching gear in the CO for the circuit. But any one of the xDSL, ISDN, T1 options are light years ahead of the cable companies. And they generally know when stuff is down since you may be on the same switch as someone who has an SLA with the providor. And the better ones will monitor their network for problems. | ||
| Steve Cooper (Scrover) Senior Member Username: Scrover Post Number: 599 Registered: 09-2002 |
cable | ||
| Sergei Rodionov (Uzbad) Member Username: Uzbad Post Number: 233 Registered: 08-2003 |
in general - cable. I had cable, ADSL, IDSL, SDSL and they all had own bad and good sides. Main problem is that wiring isnt of proper quality so your speed going like yoyo with DSL. And another problem is that most of providers with DSL dont own lines, so if something goes south - you running in circles between line owner and your ISP and then ISP of your ISP & etc. Unless you have chance to be sitting next to fiber optic connected center (like withing mile or two) - cable would be always better. Of course if you got tons of kids with Kazaa running of it then all bets are off (then again i used to live in townhouse condo where everyone was connected to same cable backbone and we generally had 2+ megabit speed) | ||
| Paul D. Morgan (V22guy) Dweb Lounge Member Username: V22guy Post Number: 2269 Registered: 02-2002 |
Phil, In our part of NC, I average 3 down days per year and this is the 3rd year I have ran cable. | ||
| Phillip Perkinson (Rover4x4) Senior Member Username: Rover4x4 Post Number: 589 Registered: 02-2003 |
thanks. I think we have the Fiber Optic stuff at my school. thats pretty nice, its like a T something | ||
| Patrick Oberg (Obie) New Member Username: Obie Post Number: 32 Registered: 02-2003 |
on Cox cable in Roanoke i'm currently connecting @ 10.0 MBPS! i couldn't do my business on dial up... | ||
| Chris von C. (Chrisvonc) Dweb Lounge Member Username: Chrisvonc Post Number: 333 Registered: 07-2002 |
Thats something else I forgot, I always had outages here with our cable (Comcast). Phil check out DSLREPORTS.COM and research the high speed access feedback on providers in your area. A great resource and despite the name, they cover Cable access as well. CVC | ||
| Erik Olson (Jon) Senior Member Username: Jon Post Number: 517 Registered: 02-2002 |
We have 2889kbps down and 366up through Time Warner Cable here in Concord N.C. For what it's worth, we're on a static address on TW. Comcast in San Francisco, California never got close to the 1.5mbps they promised, and I found the ADSL and SDSL outages in the same market (SBC) to be really irritating. Life in our humble N.C. doublewide ain't so bad after all... That's all I have to say about that. e | ||
| Axel Haakonsen (Axel) Moderator Username: Axel Post Number: 639 Registered: 02-2003 |
I went with Verizon DSL a few years ago, and don't regret it. It has been stable, I have had only one outage since I have been on it. My reason for going with DSL was mainly security, I just don't like the idea of having my network traffic being transmitted to everyone else on the same cable segment. I also don't like the fact that connection speed is dependant on whether or not the teenager down the street is downloading mp3's or not. DSL is easier to configure, too. For a while I had to connect to my office network through VPN, and never had a problem with that, even when going through my DSL router. Other people in the office who were on cable connections had all kinds of headaches getting their remote connections working right. - Axel | ||
| Perrone Ford (Perroneford) Member Username: Perroneford Post Number: 226 Registered: 02-2003 |
I think much of the problems in eihter camp depend greatly on the carrier. In my area, Sprint is the carrier for DSL and are beset with issues. Comcast, as much as I hate their cable TV service, have a very good product in their internet connection. It is far more stable than DSL. As I work in the networking and computer services area, all of my co-workers rely on home connections for remote support. All of us are on cable. Even those who were early adopters of DSL. So I really do think this is mostly dependent on your area. Oh, and Axel, I'm not sure why VPN would be a bigger headache on cable than DSL. Mine was a no-brainer on cable. In fact, I can't remember even indicating the kind of connection I was using. I've used it my VPN remotely from a high speed connection in a hotel room in Santa Barbara without issue. Best of luck Phillip. Be patient with whatever path you choose. Chances are once you get it all up and running, you'll like it, and NEVER want to go back to dialup. -P | ||
| Danno (Danno) Senior Member Username: Danno Post Number: 341 Registered: 08-2002 |
i have Cox cable and love it. tried DSL a few times in St. Louis, but couldn't get it to work even with the CO down the street (~1500 ft) then went cable (Charter) and never looked back. i'm consistantly getting over 2Mbps and don't have a problem with VPN for work. my inlaws have SBC DSL and my dial-up on my laptop is almost as fast. | ||
| Sean Roche (Crazy_fish) New Member Username: Crazy_fish Post Number: 12 Registered: 10-2003 |
What DSL forgets to tell you - it's that it is ADSL - the upload and download speeds are different. For most home users, the download speed is important. Here is a link to Verizon Busines packages, although I could not find the specs on their website for home users, its basically the same. I think ADSL confused people so now they just 'forget' to tell you. http://biz.verizon.net/pands/dsl/packages/Default.asp I used to have a link to a page that messures your download speed. I can't find it. I think it was over on cnet.com. Saying all that, I have DSL (ADSL), its stable, its fast ( uploading is less) and wiring my house took all of 3 minutes. You get these little "filters" that you install on each outlet so the phones work, and I can plug into any phone jack if my wireless system won't reach that part of the house. Sean |
