How much better is cable than DSL?

[Pebbles]

I have had DSL and cable, and I don't see no difference. However, with DSL if there are too many on the line, it will slow down. If you get DSL I'd say get another phone line and hook it up to that. I did in Cali and it worked wonderfully.

HUH?? You don't need another phone line. Me an hubby play are online game (which eats up all our DSL practically) and the 12 year old yaps on her phone with her friends with no problem. Think you have DSL and cable mixed up... More peeps on the cable line slows it down.. DSL is dedicated line. BTW... the after introductory price is 19 bucks right now (what I pay) with SBC/yahoo. But I bet you after the first year the prices will probably have dropped down lower anyways.... they did for me!

Also most people don't know this. But if you call them when your contract/intro price is up they will drop your price down to current introductory price anyways if you agree to stick with them for a certain amount of time (another year usually). Why do they do this? Well for example my time is up next month and I will be calling them and saying.. I heard on the radio your new customers get a deal for (amount) I have been a customer with you for (amount of time) and would like to know if you will offer me the same incentive to stay with your service?.. works like a charm believe me.. they get to 1. keep ya as a customer and 2. they are not sending out a new hook up package so still makin money for them.

[The Big Dog]

I have had DSL and cable, and I don't see no difference. However, with DSL if there are too many on the line, it will slow down. If you get DSL I'd say get another phone line and hook it up to that. I did in Cali and it worked wonderfully.

That is a common problem with cable, not DSL. (See my post above on that.) The only way this would happen with DSL is if the ISP oversold their capacity, and even then, it's not really a problem with the DSL, but rather with the ISP's marketing tactics. I know Earthlink had this problem in the Chicago area a few years back. And of course, who could forget AOL about '97?

[kmanWX]

Those of you against DSL, have you ever used DSL? I know I haven't and like Kelly, I am sick of paying the high prices. If I can get something just as good and pay less, I am all for it.

DSL is pretty good at least with the ISP I had it on. I downside was it's upload/download speed however. The downside to cable is that it's shared meaning if some one on your street is downloading things it could effect your speeds as well. I have been on both cable and DSL computers I say cable is faster however it's not right to call becouse the cable that I used was around 5mpss and the DSL i have is rated at 1.5/384. Which is not bad. However it all depends on how the relationship bettween the computer/modem and isp w/ hops on how good of a connection to get..

[kmanWX]

I have had DSL and cable, and I don't see no difference. However, with DSL if there are too many on the line, it will slow down. If you get DSL I'd say get another phone line and hook it up to that. I did in Cali and it worked wonderfully.

That is a common problem with cable, not DSL. (See my post above on that.) The only way this would happen with DSL is if the ISP oversold their capacity, and even then, it's not really a problem with the DSL, but rather with the ISP's marketing tactics. I know Earthlink had this problem in the Chicago area a few years back. And of course, who could forget AOL about '97?

Yeah Verizon had that problem in the NYC area....Tons of NYC users complained why they can't get up to 80% of there rated speeds.

[JamesFromMaine2]

you all are saying your internet has this speed or that speed or say cable is better or dsl is better from what I have heard your all correct! Dsl and cable both of diffrent speeds and depending on which ISP you have you might have a higher speed on DSL then some one else does on Cable however I think that for max speed the max speed for cable is higher then that of DSL. Cable has the same speed as that of the slowest T1 connection! My cable speed right now for cable is 100mbps however I don't think it really goes that fast but thats what the connection reads as. So any ways connection speeds all depends on what ISP you have and you can have a DSL connection that is faster then cable or have a cable connection faster then DSL!

[kmanWX]

100mps is the connection speed from your computer to your modem. What really matter is the connection speed from your modem to your isp.

Go to nyc.speakeasy.net

[beachbum_al]

We are getting DSL in a week or less. I will let you know how I like it. It has to be better than dial up.

[Shoshana]

We had TW Road Runner when we lived in an apt. We were among the first to get it (I couldn't deal w/ dialup anymore!). It was fast. Slowed down some when the kids in the area got out of school, but still tolerable. Only drawback? Besides price - if the cable goes out you lose internet and cable tv!

When we moved to our house we got dsl (SBC) because we didn't want Cox cable - we knew people who had it and had slower than dial up connections and Cox couldn't figure out why. We got SBC before they had a 2 tier system ... "Express" and "Pro". They really play games with that tho - we've been getting slower and slower downloads fo a few weeks now. We upgraded to Pro (same price - more games they play) and while it's faster, it's still not as fast as it should be. I get, at most 1.1 whatevers. My sister in N Texas has Verizon DSL, and they're getting 2.5 whatevers.

RoadRunner is now avail in our neighborhood - TW took over from Cox when I notified the city the we had Cox instead of TW - TW has a deal where they have to serve the entire city. I'd love to get the highspeed RoadRunner - but it's more than double what we are paying now plus you have to get tv cable to get RR. We get our tv over the air. (Shocking, huh?)

So... DSL is cheaper than cable usually, but cable can be much much faster. We've had less outages with DSL.

'shana

[wxmann_91]

How is the DSL doing for those who've switched to it?

For me, I've noticed a pattern with DSL outages.

For one, on some days every few minutes my computer will say "Network Cable Unplugged", the Internet will stop working, but, and fortunately, after a few seconds, the Internet comes back up. Those days there will be no outages. This problem is insignificant and in fact is quite beneficial (no outages), and it existed when I was having cable. It is somewhat of a nuisance though.

However, on other days, outages occur quite frequently (though not lasting as long as they used to), where my modem will have a red light. Sometimes the red light will not appear, but the Internet will be stop for a minute or two, not even Google will appear. But if you stop the process of loading a website the Internet will be back up. And interesting the outages occur whenever someone calls us or we call someone.

The DSL problems have continued but have improved drastically over the last few months. Weird.

[coriolis]

I never had DSL, but am a satisfied cable user. No doubt that cable is a bit expensive, especially if you rent their "box." With 4 tv's (rented boxes), two IP addresses (renting one box), 130-some channels, no premium channels, but above average pay per view usage, our cable bill runs about $160 a month.

Our cable company is continually coming out with new features - online games, streaming music, etc. There's an email filter, so I can just use Outlook express without having to join AOL or anything.

I don't know how security is for DSL, but as everyone knows, you need good firewall protection with cable because it's always on.

There's nothing like downloading megabytes in seconds, though. It makes my 500 mhz computer seem faster than it is.

[azskyman]

I have cable at home and DSL at work.

I also installed a graphics accelerator on my computer which was also necessary.

But, overall, the speeds and reliability seem about the same both places to me. In fact, there are times the DSL at work seems a little faster to me...but then, I am using a 3-year-newer machine too.

Both are adequate for the uses I make. Either can whip from one website to another if I am moving around quickly.

Considering the amount of bandwidth now out there in the world, I would think the price should come down, not go up.

And, overall, since both the DSL available AND the cable companies offer TV packages, the pricing is not all that different. Each are too much for bundled services IMHO.

[streetsoldier]

It's like the difference between a Model A Ford (56K) and a Lamborghini (cable).