[ admin note: this was split off from another thread ]
get cable.....it blows DSL away
get cable.....it blows DSL away
cable vs. dsl
- Thread starter Acura NsX Pilot
- Start date
Acura NsX Pilot said:
Cable is a horror story, in my experience.
I had cable modem service with AT&T@Home for about a year. Then Excite@Home was in financial trouble, and asked AT&T and other cable providers for money to continue their service. The other providers reached an agreement with them. AT&T felt that their negotiating ploy of brinksmanship was more important than continuing service to their 800,000 customers, so one day, without warning, AT&T yanked service entirely. Anyone stupid enough to stay with AT&T's cable service was stuck with no e-mail or internet service for 10 days, and was also stuck with a new e-mail address, so anything sent to the former @home address was gone forever. All with no warning.
The day AT&T yanked my service, I got an Earthlink dial-up account, and applied for Earthlink DSL service, which was installed a few weeks later. In the two years since then, Earthlink's customer service has been top notch, and the DSL speed has been significantly quicker than my AT&T Broadband service was. And now AT&T recently sold their broadband service to Comcast, so those customers are now going through the disruption of yet another change of e-mail addresses.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me for sticking with cable. Fortunately, I got DSL - and I'm delighted that I did.
nsxtasy said:
I am sorry about ur bad experience with cable but i think over all most people that have had both cable and dsl will agree that cable is much better and faster...i went from verizon dsl to optimum online and the increase in speed was pretty dramatic.....at least twice as fast.
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Corporate shennanigans have nothing to do with the technology. The same could just as easily happen to DSL customers. In fact a company called Broadslate, which dealt mostly with business customers throughout the mid-atlantic, went out of business about 18 months ago. It happens. It was not the technology's fault, it was actually really cool technology that let them run very high speed SDSL (over 1 megabit in many cases) over existing standard copper telco wiring for cheap! The company was just not viable for other reasons.
Many more buyouts / consolidation are in the future for the industry. It is poor business to force people to lose their old e-mail addresses when that happens, but again that is nothing specific to cable technology and could just as easily happen with a DSL merger or buyout. Anyone who is REALLY concerned about maintaining an e-mail address should register their own domain name and forward the e-mail from it to wherever they want, because otherwise there are no guarantees.
Pricing, performance and availablity vary WIDELY from area to area. In my area, a residential customer can get ADSL with 256k downstream for $50-$60/month or cable modem with a 2000k-5000k downstream for $40/month. It's not a tough decision for most people. In other areas of course the situation is different.
If cable is slower than 256k DSL, it has been implemented poorly. That is the ISP's fault, not the technology's fault. I can bring a 1000 megabit network to a crawl if I flood it with traffic, but that doesn't mean it's bad technology. Cable and DSL are very different.. one is not automatically better than the other, but they both have pros and cons for various applications. And either one can be poorly implemented, though that's probably more common with cable due to the shared bandwidth... but a good cable architecture provides excellent performance for many applications.
P.S. Regarding Excite@Home vs. AT&T... There was fault on both sides in many different ways. But ultimately it was Excite@Home that pulled the plug on all AT&T customers. Excite@Home first blamed AT&T, but later confessed that they were indeed the ones who shut down the AT&T customers when AT&T failed to cough up the money @Home was demanding from it's partners.
Many more buyouts / consolidation are in the future for the industry. It is poor business to force people to lose their old e-mail addresses when that happens, but again that is nothing specific to cable technology and could just as easily happen with a DSL merger or buyout. Anyone who is REALLY concerned about maintaining an e-mail address should register their own domain name and forward the e-mail from it to wherever they want, because otherwise there are no guarantees.
Pricing, performance and availablity vary WIDELY from area to area. In my area, a residential customer can get ADSL with 256k downstream for $50-$60/month or cable modem with a 2000k-5000k downstream for $40/month. It's not a tough decision for most people. In other areas of course the situation is different.
If cable is slower than 256k DSL, it has been implemented poorly. That is the ISP's fault, not the technology's fault. I can bring a 1000 megabit network to a crawl if I flood it with traffic, but that doesn't mean it's bad technology. Cable and DSL are very different.. one is not automatically better than the other, but they both have pros and cons for various applications. And either one can be poorly implemented, though that's probably more common with cable due to the shared bandwidth... but a good cable architecture provides excellent performance for many applications.
P.S. Regarding Excite@Home vs. AT&T... There was fault on both sides in many different ways. But ultimately it was Excite@Home that pulled the plug on all AT&T customers. Excite@Home first blamed AT&T, but later confessed that they were indeed the ones who shut down the AT&T customers when AT&T failed to cough up the money @Home was demanding from it's partners.
Cable is WAY faster... but it also costs more. I have read recently some companies are offering DSL for as low as 29.99 a month vs the 45.99 I pay. I would switch for that.
Unless you download gigabytes of porn daily, you probably wouldnt notice the difference..
Unless you download gigabytes of porn daily, you probably wouldnt notice the difference..
<B>nsxtasy</B> : sorry to hear you've had problems with cable; i've heard horror stories about DSL.
Like Lud said, Cable is noticably faster - especially on large downloads (or pix attachments!). Just imagine if you had Cable instead of DSL -- your post-count would already be ~15000...
<B>LUD WROTE: I can bring a 1000 megabit network to a crawl if I flood it with traffic, but that doesn't mean it's bad technology.</B>
Lud the leet H4X0R!!!
Kool... let's talk....
<B>NetViper Wrote: Unless you download gigabytes of porn daily, you probably wouldnt notice the difference..</B>
But then if you had GBytes of porn, why would you pay attention to your d/load speeds??
Like Lud said, Cable is noticably faster - especially on large downloads (or pix attachments!). Just imagine if you had Cable instead of DSL -- your post-count would already be ~15000...
<B>LUD WROTE: I can bring a 1000 megabit network to a crawl if I flood it with traffic, but that doesn't mean it's bad technology.</B>
Lud the leet H4X0R!!!
Kool... let's talk....
<B>NetViper Wrote: Unless you download gigabytes of porn daily, you probably wouldnt notice the difference..</B>
But then if you had GBytes of porn, why would you pay attention to your d/load speeds??
Where I live, you can get fiberoptics for the same price as dsl and cable. You get 10 mb up and down and it is incredible.
Yup. Cable is faster.
SBC is the company that is offerring 29.99/month DSL packages.
I may be biased... I have a Cable Modem...
... but then again, I think not. I work for SBC Communications.
I don't get DSL in my area! Would I switch? Probably not... even though I'd save $25+/month.
SBC is the company that is offerring 29.99/month DSL packages.
I may be biased... I have a Cable Modem...
... but then again, I think not. I work for SBC Communications.
I don't get DSL in my area! Would I switch? Probably not... even though I'd save $25+/month.
Adelphia cable and their cable modem service sucks a$$ down here in Florida. They are losing so much service to Bellsouth's DSL that they are discounting the cable modem service heavily. I switched to DSL for the convience of uninterrupted service that was dependable. Sort of like why I own an NSX and not an F-car.
Faster doesn't always mean better.
Faster doesn't always mean better.
Indeed, i have both now.
I took cable for my company, and later, i took fast-ADSL for at home, to run a webserver on.
The difference is that the ADSL provider garanties a certain up and down, but the cable provider doesn't, though is faster on the downstream normally.
Also the up on the cable is lower then on ADSL, but the down on the cable is much higher then on the ADSL.
Overall, i rather have the ADSL, because it is never down, and the higher upstream, is very pleasant.
Mich
You have to consider that each technology has it's +'s and -'s. When choosing one over the other, one must consider all factors of each technology.
Cable is typically faster than xDSL, many cable providers offer 3 mbps to residential customers. Business customers can get higher speeds if offered by the provider. The speed of xDSL varies and typically the higher the speed, the higher the cost. ADSL is slower than SDSL but the later cost more. Just like in cars, speed costs $$ - how fast do you want to go? Cable is shared bandwidth. Being shared bandwidth speed is dependant on the number of user on the network at one time. More users = less speed. Cable providers will not guarantee speed. DSL is private bandwidth you get what you pay for (in most cases) although there are no guarantees here either; unless you have a Quality of Service (QoS) guarantee written in your agreement.
With cable there is no security after the data leaves your house or business. Anybody and their mother can capture (steal) your data transmissions on a cable system if they know how and really wanted. And as Lus stated they can bring the cable network to a crawl until they get caught by the cable providers technicians. This may not happen if they are spoofing an IP address from another cable user. Can't do that with xDSL. A good hacker or network engineer can trap data off the Internet so is DSL security any better? It is from your house or business until it gets to the providers Connection Office (CO). After that your data and eveyone elses is vunerable. Encrypted data is another story.
DSL is distant dependant. The further you are from the CO the slower your DSL speed will be. If you are too far from the CO your speeds will be so slow you may as well use a phone modem. They probably won't sell it to you anyway. Cable is not distance dependant.
Cable & DSL availability - if the technology isn't sold in your area you ain't gettin it. Another downfault of cable is when your TV service is down, so is your Internet access.
For raw speed you can't beat cable. For more secure transmissions pick xDSL.
Cable is typically faster than xDSL, many cable providers offer 3 mbps to residential customers. Business customers can get higher speeds if offered by the provider. The speed of xDSL varies and typically the higher the speed, the higher the cost. ADSL is slower than SDSL but the later cost more. Just like in cars, speed costs $$ - how fast do you want to go? Cable is shared bandwidth. Being shared bandwidth speed is dependant on the number of user on the network at one time. More users = less speed. Cable providers will not guarantee speed. DSL is private bandwidth you get what you pay for (in most cases) although there are no guarantees here either; unless you have a Quality of Service (QoS) guarantee written in your agreement.
With cable there is no security after the data leaves your house or business. Anybody and their mother can capture (steal) your data transmissions on a cable system if they know how and really wanted. And as Lus stated they can bring the cable network to a crawl until they get caught by the cable providers technicians. This may not happen if they are spoofing an IP address from another cable user. Can't do that with xDSL. A good hacker or network engineer can trap data off the Internet so is DSL security any better? It is from your house or business until it gets to the providers Connection Office (CO). After that your data and eveyone elses is vunerable. Encrypted data is another story.
DSL is distant dependant. The further you are from the CO the slower your DSL speed will be. If you are too far from the CO your speeds will be so slow you may as well use a phone modem. They probably won't sell it to you anyway. Cable is not distance dependant.
Cable & DSL availability - if the technology isn't sold in your area you ain't gettin it. Another downfault of cable is when your TV service is down, so is your Internet access.
For raw speed you can't beat cable. For more secure transmissions pick xDSL.
Around where I live the cable and DSL speeds are about the same. The DSL market is more unstable though. The last DSL provider I had before I got my cable modem went bankrupt. I really prefer DSL over cable modems because you can get a static ip and the uploads are typically faster. With the DSL I was getting 1Mb up and down speeds for $80.00. I miss my DSL.
Cable
I became a cable evangilist when MediaOne began providing its Road Runner service in my area a few years ago. Yes, there were early problems going cable (once my service was down for an entire week), but very few problems ever since.
MediaOne became AT&T Broadband. AT&T Broadband became Comcast. All along, I've enjoyed super fast downloads, but I can't say I was pleased with Mediaone or AT&T's customer service. Here's hoping Comcast is a bit better in that area.
My parents recently went to Verizon DSL (no digital cable services in their area). I found cable modems a bit easier to setup (don't have to put filters on my phone jacks). They've had problems with their service going down and/or not being able to access their e-mail. And I definitely download things faster on my cable modem than my parents can via DSL.
I became a cable evangilist when MediaOne began providing its Road Runner service in my area a few years ago. Yes, there were early problems going cable (once my service was down for an entire week), but very few problems ever since.
MediaOne became AT&T Broadband. AT&T Broadband became Comcast. All along, I've enjoyed super fast downloads, but I can't say I was pleased with Mediaone or AT&T's customer service. Here's hoping Comcast is a bit better in that area.
My parents recently went to Verizon DSL (no digital cable services in their area). I found cable modems a bit easier to setup (don't have to put filters on my phone jacks). They've had problems with their service going down and/or not being able to access their e-mail. And I definitely download things faster on my cable modem than my parents can via DSL.
I think it's all based on your location and service avaliability. For my area cable is a better solution at the moment.
All the cable evangilist must not ever upload, here is were you will see the weakness of the cable modem. Also I get tired of them changing my IP address all the time.
How about both? I currently have Comcast Cable, and will be ordering DSL next week as a backup. I'm also ordering a router with two WAN ports, so my network at home will utilize both connections.
O-Ace, you are crazy.
There were several guys here at SBC that had both cable and DSL. Both said the cable was faster. DSL was more consistent... but even when cable was going through the slow, congested, peak traffic times... it was still faster than DSL.
But what everyone says is right. It depends on the package you pay for, your distance from the CO, etc. etc. etc.
... but to help pay for my NSX... buy SBC DSL!
There were several guys here at SBC that had both cable and DSL. Both said the cable was faster. DSL was more consistent... but even when cable was going through the slow, congested, peak traffic times... it was still faster than DSL.
But what everyone says is right. It depends on the package you pay for, your distance from the CO, etc. etc. etc.
... but to help pay for my NSX... buy SBC DSL!
That's exactly what I'm getting...SBC DSLPOWERED by HONDA said:O-Ace, you are crazy.
... but to help pay for my NSX... buy SBC DSL!
So, next time I'm in Cali, you better give me a ride in the NSX that I'm funding
nsxxtreme said:
My cable uploads are capped to 16KBytes (128Kbit), but that's no different to most DSL plans. Just prevents me from being a largest NSX-warez server.
Having your IP change is a good security measure. Most DSL providers also use dynamic IP's, so i don't see any difference again.
love your avatar btw.
NeoNSX said:My cable uploads are capped to 16KBytes (128Kbit), but that's no different to most DSL plans. Just prevents me from being a largest NSX-warez server.
Having your IP change is a good security measure. Most DSL providers also use dynamic IP's, so i don't see any difference again.
love your avatar btw.
I don't want my IP to change. I run my own FTP and website. I also run a terminal services server so I can log in remotely. So keeping track of my computer is sometimes a pain in the A**. Around my area DSL has much faster upload speeds then cable. I used to get 1 Mb up and down speeds for $80, until they went bankrupt. I use multiple firewalls so I am not to worried about security.
Thanks, Sadly the bike is for sale. I just don't ride it enough anymore.
O-Ace, you have a deal! Just don't whine about how slow it is compared to your Vette!!
DSL is better for music swapping... well, SBC DSL is better for music swapping.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...030731/ap_on_bi_ge/pac_bell_downloading_music
Just don't whine about how slow it is compared to your Vette!! DSL is better for music swapping... well, SBC DSL is better for music swapping.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...030731/ap_on_bi_ge/pac_bell_downloading_music
Sacramento is very fortunate for being the first city in the country to get fiber optic broadband. For all of you technology fans who are concerned about high download rates, you have not seen anything like fiber optic. I've seen fiber optic performance that would leave you drooling! My friend was surfing for music, and I saw a 5.0 MB song get passed to his computer in LESS THAN A SECOND! This was with other information being passed concurrently, too.
It costs approx $50 per month, and the service has been very troublefree in the 1.5 years it's been here. I don't have it yet, but I will, as soon as it comes to my part of town. I'm staying with dialup until that day comes...
It costs approx $50 per month, and the service has been very troublefree in the 1.5 years it's been here. I don't have it yet, but I will, as soon as it comes to my part of town. I'm staying with dialup until that day comes...
Wow! That's FAST! Did you really have to rub that in?
POWERED by HONDA said:Wow! That's FAST! Did you really have to rub that in?
Hehe, sorry. I wasn't trying to rub it in. I guess I just want to let everyone know what's on the horizon...
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