DSL or Cable

[DanKellFla]

I just switched over to a cable modem. Right now, my services overlap, so I decided to compare them. It turns out that the cable is 25% faster than the DSL modem. (I am about 500 feet away from the Bellsouth box for those who are interested.) I like to be connected during a storm. For the first time, I have a laptop. I was wondering if anybody has any experience with DSL during a hurricane. How long did your service stay up? I think that when cable TV goes out, so does my modem. And my cable usually goes dead about 1/3rd of the way in.

[Aquawind]

Power will be the issue before phones or cable from my experience. My DSL has been very reliable and with my generator we can surf constantly.. I have a dish for TV and that only looses signal during the most intense rain and runs well on the generator. Cable is faster but I do know of many people down here that had problems during and after the hurricanes. However each network can have it's local problems either by design or equipment that would be considered atypical.

[skysummit]

I have cable through Time Warner. My only experience so far with cable internet and storms was for Rita. We had an outer band that rotated over us for almost 2 hours with 40 - 60mph winds. The cable was fine....then the power went out. I love my internet. I find it almost twice as fast as a buddy who has DSL.....yet the commercials on TV for DSL say "faster than cable". I have no idea where they get that from.

[brunota2003]

My experience, Roadrunner through Timewarner, which is cable, During both Isabel and Ophelia we had cable up until the power went out...however for Ophelia we never completely lost power, it was just flickering constantly, but a tree about 500 yds up the road fell, barely missed the powerline, and took out the cable line (go figure) then it fell through a big wooden fence just barely missing the house it fell from, I mean the edges of the limbs were up against the house...they got so lucky...anyways, due to the tree and them taking care of more priority areas, is was about 24 hours before we got cable back, but we were one of the very few people here with power

[beachbum_al]

Well I had DSL during Katrina and it worked well until they restored my power. After my power was restored the phone line went out. What luck! It worked well. I have not used it during a direct hit though. I had dial up during Ivan and was not at home either.

[HDGator]

My DSL stayed up through Frances, Jeane, and Wilma in 2004/2005. This includes periods of up to 9 days without power when I used a generator to power the laptop. I had neighbors that were out of cable for weeks during some of these storms. They didn't even appear to start troubleshooting the cable until the power was restored.

This is the primary reason I have stayed with DSL. The speed is very inviting but in the end reliability when you need it counts more to me than anything else and it's tough to justify duplicate service (not saying I haven't thought about trying to convince my wife ).

In my case most of my phone lines back to the CO are underground which helps the reliability. I don't think the cable distribution amplifiers will work without power which pretty much guarantees you being down without power. Your mileage may vary depending on your service.

[george_r_1961]

My cable would have worked had the power stayed on during Isabel. The few hundred customers in my city that did not lose power retained cable service. The phone company though did not have enough generators on hand to keep their batteries charged; so phone service was on and off for several days.

[southerngale]

I have RoadRunner cable through Time Warner and it was out for a few months after Rita hit, along with cable. Of course we didn't have electricity for weeks either. I am staying with cable because it's faster though...hard to blame them after Rita...everything around here was down. My phone came back sooner, but my parent's line was out for months. Rita sucked.

Btw, for regular thunderstorms, flooding rains, etc. my cable stays on. I believe it's generally reliable, but I had to evacuate during Rita anyway, so I wasn't around to want cable.

[Alladin]

Heck, I’m on dial-up and it’s all I need. I get a 50.6 Kbps connection all the time. During both Ivan and Dennis my phone line still worked. However, I had no desire to go online during that period. I was too busy in my recovery efforts.

[MGC]

I have cable but want to switch to DSL. Why? Because BellSouth is putting all its phone lines underground in Pass Christian. I feel this will make for a more reliable system. My cable was out for 3 months after Katrina......MGC

[nut]

My cable (Roadrunner) never went out during Rita. I'm in Beaumont and it was working fine (tv and internet) when my electricity was restored about 2 weeks after the storm.

[NFLDART]

I have cable and love the speed, have a broadband card backup.