cable or dsl?

[Doomguy]

Show me DSL that beats my Cable.

Test running..........
** Speed 5891(down)/946(up) kbps **
(At least 117 times faster than a 56k modem)
Finish.

Optimum online is the best cable isp.

 

[bjc112]

WHOA.. i get 698/112

90 k isnt bad at all tough

 

[gritnugget]

<< Show me DSL that beats my Cable. Test running.......... ** Speed 5891(down)/946(up) kbps ** (At least 117 times faster than a 56k modem) Finish. Optimum online is the best cable isp. >>



Lol... what site did you get that from? You do know those tests are completely pointless.. only measuring from your point to their server.. not the true potential of your circuit... besides.. unless you are on in the morning or in the middle of the night... people are suckign away at your bandwidth constantly... plus if you cable goes out.. what happens to your service? Hrmz... remember the last time your phones went out?

 

[gritnugget]

lol... btw I just tried one on MSN...

81600 Kbps!!!

ahahahahaha 1 r r00lz j00r k@13|_3

 

[S0me1X]

My DSL's speed varies quite a bit. Most of the time, its aroud 972/384

During prime hours (from 6-11pm) it feels like 384/384ish

 

[bozo1]

If DSL is sluggish during primetime, that usually means your ISP has insufficient bandwidth between them and their upstream provider. In many areas, you can choose many different providers for DSL service which is nice.

 

[Strych9]

<< DSL gives you dedicated bandwidth, so no matter how many people in your area have it it wont slow you down when there all online. >>

DSL is shared also just at a different point.

 

[Doomguy]

<< Lol... what site did you get that from? You do know those tests are completely pointless.. only measuring from your point to their server.. not the true potential of your circuit... besides.. unless you are on in the morning or in the middle of the night... people are suckign away at your bandwidth constantly... plus if you cable goes out.. what happens to your service? Hrmz... remember the last time your phones went out? >>



I got it from Speakeasy . A very popular and reliable bandwidth tester, unlike that crappy MSN test. Sorry but my cable is
better than your DSL, face it.

I ran the test a couple hours ago. Why is your isp rated so bad on dslreports.com compared to mine? Because mine is better, it's very simple.

 

[dbwillis]

I have to chime in here, I had AT+T and the speed was so-so, went down a few times while I had it.
My parents got Optimum OnLine a few months back, its very, very fast, seems not to be capped at all.
Ive done the speedguide tests at several different times of day, all seemed exceptionally well and fast.
I think it relates to the service being new to the area my parents lived in, (Watertown, CT) cable net access was just announced about 2 weeks before they got it, myabe its not overloaded yet.

Myself, I had Adelphia Powerlink cable net access, service was so-so, went down about 3x the 4 months I had it, email was down quite alot, then the @Home stuff happened and my service went downhill, supposedly Adelphia isnt run on @Home (from what they say) but the service was total BS now.
I called and talked to the tech people several times, they said theres no speed problems at this time each time I called, they said to check my PC because there was something wrong, I tried with/without router (Linksys), 3com, Linksys, Intel, generic nic cards, different cables, etc, same slow problem.
I signed up for DSL form SNET (to be turned on 12/27 but already on and running since 12/16) and did side by side tests from the same speedguide test site at 1130pm on a Sunday night (shouldnt be primetime should it?).

Cable = 26kbps down, 86kbps up (best result out of 4x)
DSL = 980kbps down, 109kbps up (best result out of 4x)

For me DSL is better, fo rmy parents cable is better

 

[Doomguy]

dbwillis: Exactly. It depends on what providers are available to you rather than the technology itself.

DSL is also available where I live, but i'm 2000 feet to far. The provider is Frontier and they haven't been rated too good, so I don't care.

 

[billyjak]

I have cable and it's fast, but it slowed down a little as time goes by.
I would try cable first. as there is no lenghtly contract with cable, it's a pay by the month service.
If you decide cable is too slow then go DSL, but DSL usually costs more and theyr's a long term contract usually involved.
Also it depends on how far your away from the sub station. The farther away the slower it gets, gennerally about 15,000 ft.
So with cable you can experiment and pay monthly or go DSL and get a 1 year or 2 year lease.

 

[Dreadogg]

adelphia may have been crappy a year ago but it rocks now, they have matured in the internet service department. where are the DSL people that are getting the good rates like my fellow cable users like i could never be satisfied with 1000 kbps compared to my 4000 kbps or 4 Mbps !

 

[MikeMike]

i think my dsl provider when it becomes available will be apk.net which has had sweet reviews at dslreports but i have no idea what cable provider might be since adelphia isnt available near me and my cable really sux ass it goes down for like a day if the power goes out for 3 or more hours it is such fubar it isnt even funny

but maybe optimum will become available but apk sounds sweet and i dont think i would live very far from the co since about 3000 feet away from me is the end of the dsl for the townnext to me. but we will see hopefully one becomes avail in the next few months so i can play games and d/l tons of stuff unlike my 30 min d/l of clone cd!!! at 1.7k!!!

 

[bjc112]

nice site.. i get 726/115 from them

 

[boyRacer]

i'm getting 1500/290... but my brother is playing TO and CS on the other end... dunno if that affects it somehow. Still slow to me... it used to get 2500-3000.

 

[MikeMike]

<< i'm getting 1500/290... but my brother is playing TO and CS on the other end... dunno if that affects it somehow. Still slow to me... it used to get 2500-3000. >>



um cool but dsl or cable?

 

[Halogen]

guys, you dont test your internet by it's 'potential' or 'what the website told me'

i got my ADSL tested on a website and it told me my DSL was 2.5mb even though the max i have ever seen from it is about 500kps (3 DLs at once, not just 1 from the same site), comparing the speed your ISP tells you is rediculous. my phone company tells me my ADSL is 1.5mb down .5mb up but it's really not

all i have to say about cable is that it gives crappier pings for games but downloads faster, its like comparing a hose and how much water can flow through it.
cable is like a 5' diameter pipe with low pressure, it sends lots of info through but the info takes a while to get from 1 side to the other
DSL is like a 3' diameter pipe with extremely high pressure, it doesn't send as much total but stuff gets from 1 side to the other in a shorter time

my friend has cable and i have DSL, he gets the same ping in every server for every game, 200 ping all the time no matter where the server is located, my ping depends on where the server is, 98 if it's in my city or 400 if it's in australia

 

[RanDum72]

Go with DSL. Too many issues with cable

Huh? Check out dslreports, DSl has WAY more issues than cable, from installation to just plainly trying to make it work. As for pings, the fastest pings
have always been with cable connections. It all depends on the provider but on average, cable is faster, cheaper and more reliable than DSL.

 

[ander]

If neither is currently available in your area...it's possible that one will come online before the other...time might be a factor in your decision.

 

[kyle1745]

I have yet to see a DSL connection touch a cable connection at its worst. For fast DSL that even comes close to cable you will spend $100-150 a month. The DSL you get for $39.99 is slow, dog slow. They all have there ups and downs, but I have yet to see a good DSL conenction I would use. I have had cable for years and was one of the original users since the city I used to live in was a test market for it.

Kyle

 

[kyle1745]

http://nyc.speakeasy.net/

The link about that DOOMGUY posted has a very good explanation of how to covert from kilobits to kilobyes. So if you run these comparisons between cable and DSL, you will see the difference quickly. Granted these are max speeds that you will never see, but when a 1/3 of the max is even so much greater than DSL you will see the great difference between the two.

Good luck, and remember they both have good and bad times, and there are rumors of MUCH faster cable connections on the way. Some of the cable modems can handle much faster speed its just a matter of the cable companies turning on the SPEED.

Kyle

 

[chrisbest01]

if your dsl provider give you 1.5 megs downstream, get it instead of cable because in most area, cable is cap at 2 megs downstream.

if your dsl only provide 768kpbs for basic, i recommend you get cable, it sux sometimes (at night), but most of the time you get about 100k/s

 

[cuteybunny]

well it doesn't matter which you have, both their upload speed suxs. what i like to do is get both of them hooked into my computer doubling transfer speed. so dsl being 1500kbit/256kbit + cable 3000kbit/128kbit = 4500kbit/384kbit sweet

 

[Texun]

A lot depends on the reputation of your cable company and the design of their fiber nodes. In my system we have a design limit of about 500 customers per node, but these are customers of whatever product is being offered; video, phone, data, and only data customers will have an impact on the speed. Phone takes almost nothing in the way of bandwidth and video is going to be there regardless of the number of video customers.

The penetration rates for cable per node is often much less than 10% meaning you may see 50 data customers max per node, and then all of them would have to be on line at the same time in order to see a difference in speed.

The other consideration is the bottleneck at the UBR. You may only have 10 customers on your node but 2500 hitting the UBR where all the nodes in your area meet. Engineers monitor the bandwidth being used, and when it nears ~70% capacity they begin planning for re-combines or node splits to balance the load. DLS is no different at this point. Somewhere, somehow, the traffic is going to be shared regardless of what you go with. Your neighbor won't be the problem if it is designed correctly. But! If the cable operator is more interested in burning the system up for money than they are in providing reliable service you may get screwed before your node gets split or recombined.

I always get at least as good if not better than a T1 (1.5Mb\sec) with mine and I've had it since day one. Before the speed caps were put in place I could get 3Mb+ consistently. Believe it or not it was hard to adjust to a T1 speed after seeing what it was capable of when uncapped.

For what it's worth, the speed caps are used to regulate bandwidth in the system and protect the average cable modem user from those who try and run file or game servers 24/7 which caused some problems. Good for the average user, but a real annoyance to those wishing to run a server. Also, I don't know of any provider who will promise a permanent IP address. There is a little known issue on the horizon called IP Reclamation, whereas the provider can cycle the IP's as they wish in order to maximize their distribution and usage. Most of the time they will not change, but they want them dynamic so they can change when needed. You can hard code the IP but if it is reclaimed you will have to release and renew to get a new IP.

DSL is good when you are near the CO, but I personally have never heard many DSL success stories... this isn't to say there aren't any. Check them all out and go for a money back guarantee in case you want to change your mind later.

If you are still on the fence about cable, ask yourself how the service and reputation of your local cable operator is. If it?s good, chances are good that you will be happy with a cable modem.