Cable or DSL? Which is better?

DSL is getting better, but I think cable is the best now. I have 6mb/700k and it's pretty fast when I need to DL an mpg posted on fchat.

 

As far as download speed and reliability, I think cable wins by a long shot. For price, DSL is almost always cheaper, but you can sometimes find a good promotion from Comcast. Same deal with TV. Cable's more expensive, but sometimes you can find a good deal on it.

 

Yes /Yes

Though, I really get about 4mb DL

 

DSL cheaper, as fast as you'll ever need.

Cable is more expensive but it tends to be faster. Amazingly so late at night.

One thing that may turn you to DSL is that Verizon now packs a nice westell wireless router with the package. It's a good unit and saves you money on Linksys add ons's

Cable tends to give better performance for gaming and downloading large files. All in all, Get cable if you have a choice. Comcasts is pretty good. I have it at my girl's apartment and DSL at home. Both are very good but cable has an edge at speed when gaming late at night and downloading huge files.

BOTH will suck at uploading unless you get a business line.

 

I have DSL myself and have not had any issues with it. The only way i can cable internet is by purchasing the full blown package from Cox a little over $110/Month.

I did look into Direct TV but the equipment is not cheap and upload speed are the same as dialup since i typicaly have to upload 40-70MB at a time from an event photoshoot i need much faster speed to get it done.

 

I have a wireless net connection to a cable connection. My speeds are in the 11MB range, but I hardly come close to maxing that out. I can upload at 500-600kbps (multiple files) and download about the same. I prefer cable though, personally.

 

Coming from a guy(me) who worked for an ISP for 2 years and a cable company for 4 years, and 1 year at both jobs (how's that for conflict of interest?):

DSL: generally cheaper and generally a bit slower. Plugs into telephone jack which are usually more abundant in a house then cable drops. It takes two "services" to run, i.e. the phone company and an Internet Service Provider. Someone like Qwest will do both for $50/month, but if a local ISP supports DSL you can get the digital line from Qwest for $20 and service from an ISP for $20 and save $10/month.

Cable: Speed is generally faster BUT you share bandwidth with neighbors. The more neighbors who get service the slower it can get. If one neighbor decides to download a 3 gig movie one day it will slow down your connection. That is why Oppie20 said his cable seems faster at night, because traffic on the cable network is at a minimum. There are typically less cable drops in a house, but they are also cheaper to install then a new telephone line.

Medium quality is very important for both as far as speed and reliability. If you have old crappy phone lines the digital data just won't flow through them well. Same with cable wiring that is poorly made, crimped, insulated, cheap, etc. i.e. radio shack/walmart/kmart cable.

I personally would go the cable route unless I lived in an area where I knew there were tons of other cable modem users or businesses, then I'd go DSL.

 

For online gaming cable rocks. Cox has a 5MB option that screams.

I had DSL on SBC for about 6 months and cable kicks it to the curb.

If you don't game or download big files, DSL is great.....but for gaming.....cable or death.

 

I have Cox and it brutalizes DSL as far as speeds go...

I download regularly at 500k/s.

 

Its simply not even close.
However I dont worry about cost. im a performance guy.

Cable wins hands down have used a number of different options in the past.
DSL (Verizon), "wireless from a tower" www.purelyonline.com, and Cable (comcast).

The speed and reliability are just so much better at comcast. Not that it never goes out.. but its much more rare than with DSL.. hell DSL wasnt worth a crap.

 

Cable absolutes rules over DSL for both speed and reliability. I'm hooked into a 50 unit apartment building, all of which have cable, in college town where most of the college kids have cable and I don't notice a slowdown at any hour. Downloading 60mb files takes about 2 minutes any time of the day.

 

Check to see if Verizon is offering FIOS in your area.(fiber optics) It'll have up to 15 Mbps down and 2 up, for their fastest service. How's that for speed? It'll blow cable away.

Check here to see if you can get it:

http://www22.verizon.com/FiosForHome/channels/Fios/HighSpeedInternetForHome.asp

 

another cable fan!

 

I'm interested.....and it says avail. at my home! I do recall them come through here a couple months back to lay the lines but I thought they would have sent promos around if they were ready. Do you know if you can have two broadband services? Keep cable and add this?

 

For DSL, your speed and reliability will depend on the length and quality of the phone lines in your neighborhood. The phone wires in my area are 50 years old, so DSL is marginal even though I'm close enough to throw rocks at the central office.

Cable is set for the "average" user -- windoze, surfing, some gaming. You generally can't run your own servers on a cable connection. For that, you'd need business class service with a static IP ... which usually takes you back to DSL. Even cable service with static IPs tend to block running your own servers -- because it's shared bandwidth.

Cable also tends to have mediocre to poor response times to outages. DSL (especially business class) tends to have quicker technical response ... at least, for anything they can tweak from the tech office. Getting a phone tech out on the pavement takes longer, but getting a cable tech is an epic saga.

Verizon had pretty good technical support, but I switched to a Covad reseller, because Verizon's business office kept @#$%ing up. The billing department goofed and shut down service twice in 18 months -- and took a month to turn it back on ... and then messed up the speeds again. And they still haven't cleared the "hit" on my credit rating when they forgot to credit my account with a payment. And Verizon's phone support is overdriven by "metrics" -- they always want to "transfer" you to another department ... e.g. toss you back to that @#$% automated attendant. (Keeps call times down and "number of calls" up -- looks good on paper, but pi$$es off the customers.) Verizon was pretty good a few years back, but the fubar business office pretty much disqualifies them now.

Covad repackagers will have lower prices and faster-to-a-human phone support, but they rely on Covad for field techs, and they're still dependent on the quality of the phone lines between your house and the central office.

For either, what you get is what you get -- you can rarely insist on the speeds you signed up for. If a DSL link keeps dropping, they just lower the speeds. Cable doesn't usually give you a service level agreement -- if it's out for a week, you still owe the whole month; if more people are connected and the speeds drop by half, you still pay as much.

 

cable and i've had both

 

Sure, why not? Let us know which one you like better? They laid lines here recently but I'm just waiting for the final testing to be complete. They've been sending mailers to me even though it's not available just yet.

 

Guess who just called?

Verizon FIOS............ so I said yes and in two weeks I should be able to check it out. One thing I didn't like is they need to switch the POTS lines over.... not happy with that, but we will see. I've got 60days to check it. I'll let you know and no I'm not dumping HS cable. Though, I might drop it down to 4mb service....

15/2 MB pipe

 

Cable for sure!

 

Cable.

 

Until DSL can give me something around 10mbps down and AT LEAST 2mbps up for about 50$ a month, I'm fine with my 5000/384 for about the same price.

Plus, I get newsgroups and what not and all this other crap. Alltel from what I've found out is really bad about that kinda stuff.

Cable is better than DSL in every aspect. I don't know why you'd want to get DSL.

 

Cable. I'm on it now, sharing in the house with three teenagers, and still getting.
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