DSL

[lyssword]

Originally posted by: MegaVovaN

Originally posted by: lyssword
the only thing better about cable is lower latencies for online games, it matters in shooter games like CS source other than that, its about the same.

disagreed. when some @sshat pulls 2gb of anime a day, your latencies will suck big time cuz you share cable with them...

edit: Here's a nice read about DSL vs. Cable

If you are too far from "station hub" your speeds will suck.

Heck, I'll take slowest DSL package (1500/128) over 40mbit cable shared by pirates who download and upload sh1t all day long, nonstop.

I had DSL 5mb down/896up at our house. Best in CS source I could get was 50, average being 60-75 ms.
I moved out to apartment, got cable. Best ping is 17-20, average being 30-40. In cs, you can tell the difference between 70 and 30 ping, given you run at least 45+ fps. And in online fps low ping is almost as important as good fps, for smoother experience.

I'm not bashing DSL, it's very decent (about same) for downloads and comparable experience in RTS/mmo games, but when milliseconds count (in FPS), cable is just better.

 

[potato28]

Originally posted by: lyssword

Originally posted by: MegaVovaN

Originally posted by: lyssword
the only thing better about cable is lower latencies for online games, it matters in shooter games like CS source other than that, its about the same.

disagreed. when some @sshat pulls 2gb of anime a day, your latencies will suck big time cuz you share cable with them...

edit: Here's a nice read about DSL vs. Cable

If you are too far from "station hub" your speeds will suck.

Heck, I'll take slowest DSL package (1500/128) over 40mbit cable shared by pirates who download and upload sh1t all day long, nonstop.

I had DSL 5mb down/896up at our house. Best in CS source I could get was 50, average being 60-75 ms.
I moved out to apartment, got cable. Best ping is 17-20, average being 30-40. In cs, you can tell the difference between 70 and 30 ping, given you run at least 45+ fps. And in online fps low ping is almost as important as good fps, for smoother experience.

I'm not bashing DSL, it's very decent (about same) for downloads and comparable experience in RTS/mmo games, but when milliseconds count (in FPS), cable is just better.

I get great pings with my DSL, and most of the servers are hundreds to thousands of miles away from me. And I don't live near the CO as I'm on the outer limits of the GTA.

 

[lyssword]

Originally posted by: potato28

Originally posted by: lyssword

Originally posted by: MegaVovaN

Originally posted by: lyssword
the only thing better about cable is lower latencies for online games, it matters in shooter games like CS source other than that, its about the same.

disagreed. when some @sshat pulls 2gb of anime a day, your latencies will suck big time cuz you share cable with them...

edit: Here's a nice read about DSL vs. Cable

If you are too far from "station hub" your speeds will suck.

Heck, I'll take slowest DSL package (1500/128) over 40mbit cable shared by pirates who download and upload sh1t all day long, nonstop.

I had DSL 5mb down/896up at our house. Best in CS source I could get was 50, average being 60-75 ms.
I moved out to apartment, got cable. Best ping is 17-20, average being 30-40. In cs, you can tell the difference between 70 and 30 ping, given you run at least 45+ fps. And in online fps low ping is almost as important as good fps, for smoother experience.

I'm not bashing DSL, it's very decent (about same) for downloads and comparable experience in RTS/mmo games, but when milliseconds count (in FPS), cable is just better.

I get great pings with my DSL, and most of the servers are hundreds to thousands of miles away from me. And I don't live near the CO as I'm on the outer limits of the GTA.

Define great 100 may be great to you but to me it's not
cs source/1.6 servers have the lowest pings usually lower than other (non-dedicated server?) games. Seattle servers which are 300 miles away gives me 18-20 ping, LA 35 ping, East coast around 100 .

 

[spidey07]

Best advice?

As a technology cable blows away DSL in every aspect. It all depends on the provider though and how they manage their capacity and network.

 

[alkemyst]

Originally posted by: spidey07
Best advice?

As a technology cable blows away DSL in every aspect. It all depends on the provider though and how they manage their capacity and network.

I don't get that statement.

A cable connection is shared at the user end. It's very easy for a over-sold stream or one in a huge condo to get saturated at peak times and drop to dismal transfer rates.

A DSL connection is not shared at the user end, although a lot of uploads at the switch could kill traffic...most people are leeches though and one of the reasons ADSL is mostly offered instead of SDSL.

The biggest problem with DSL (and I am needing to probably switch to cable because of it) is major distance limits. At 18000 ft you are out of the 1.5Mbps ball park and at half that out of 3-6Mbps. Crappy lines also play a big part and the telephone infrastructure is a lot older than cable ones. I am borderline right now. For the most part I cruise at 1.3Mbps/215k, but come bad weather or just a bad day and I am at 500k/215k with 100ms+ pings.

The big drawback is cable is about 50% more. It is a 6Mbps service rather than 1.5Mbps I am getting now though.

Å

 

[MegaVovaN]

Originally posted by: alkemyst

Originally posted by: spidey07
Best advice?

As a technology cable blows away DSL in every aspect. It all depends on the provider though and how they manage their capacity and network.

I don't get that statement.

A cable connection is shared at the user end. It's very easy for a over-sold stream or one in a huge condo to get saturated at peak times and drop to dismal transfer rates.

A DSL connection is not shared at the user end, although a lot of uploads at the switch could kill traffic...most people are leeches though and one of the reasons ADSL is mostly offered instead of SDSL.

The biggest problem with DSL (and I am needing to probably switch to cable because of it) is major distance limits. At 18000 ft you are out of the 1.5Mbps ball park and at half that out of 3-6Mbps. Crappy lines also play a big part and the telephone infrastructure is a lot older than cable ones. I am borderline right now. For the most part I cruise at 1.3Mbps/215k, but come bad weather or just a bad day and I am at 500k/215k with 100ms+ pings.

The big drawback is cable is about 50% more. It is a 6Mbps service rather than 1.5Mbps I am getting now though.

Å

Well said, crap phone lines are the bane of DSL. But come to think of it...I had 56kbps dial-up with AOL for some time, and get 6mbps service out of the same phone line? WOW that technology is AWESOME!

 

[ShellGuy]

Originally posted by: MegaVovaN

Originally posted by: lyssword
the only thing better about cable is lower latencies for online games, it matters in shooter games like CS source other than that, its about the same.

disagreed. when some @sshat pulls 2gb of anime a day, your latencies will suck big time cuz you share cable with them...

edit: Here's a nice read about DSL vs. Cable

If you are too far from "station hub" your speeds will suck.

Heck, I'll take slowest DSL package (1500/128) over 40mbit cable shared by pirates who download and upload sh1t all day long, nonstop.

That article you posted must be dam old if they are talkin about 2mb dl speeds I have 15md down & 2mb up load speeds. And the cable system is redundent for ur pirates who dl alot the true backbone can support dbl the connections if needed.


Will G.

 

[MegaVovaN]

Yeah, article is old, but nothing apart from speeds available changed, as far as I know.

And I think you never lived with hardcore pirates. They will clog any connection.

Backbone will support stuff, but your end is slow because of the pirates. Think of it as a plant: main stem (backbone) is very fast and enough to top off (100mbit or 1000mbit) your and your neighbors' connections. The branch (line you share with neighbors) is slower but alright. You and pirates (neighbors) are leaves. IF other leaves suck juice too fast, you will get it slowly.

I have a friend exactly in situation described above. His neighbors must be downloading and uploading pr0n by gigabytes a day. His pings in CSS suck because of them.

 

[kevnich2]

If you REALLY want to compare DSL & Cable, then ok. Yes, DSL is a dedicated line from you to the ISP. Cable is a shared line from you to the ISP. But honestly, that's where it stops. Once the DSL line gets to the ISP, it's shared between everyone at that point. That point is called the DSLAM. Once at the DSLAM it has one upload to the ISP's backbone. This is the same thing as cable (I don't know what cable calls that piece of equipment) so really, their both shared among several people. It all depends on how much the ISP has oversubscribed. You can have a 3mb DSL line but if your ISP has 300 customers but only a T1 line, well your still going to have problems. Truth be told, the technology behind DSL & cable is very different though and to me and probably a lot of others, cable is far ahead of DSL. Cable speeds will be well over 100mb in a little while, while DSL over copper (Obviously fiber is changing that) has definite limitations. But as I said previously, even if the cable speed itself is greater, if the ISP doesn't have enough capacity for itself, it really doesn't matter. The real differences are basically where you are located. In my part of the US, DSL doesn't hold a candle to cable service (Bright house through road runner).

 

[Uppsala9496]

I've been using AT&T DSL for 5 years now and have never had a reliability problem. I am running off some old line, so my speeds are slower, but service wise it has been great.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: alkemyst

Originally posted by: spidey07
Best advice?

As a technology cable blows away DSL in every aspect. It all depends on the provider though and how they manage their capacity and network.

I don't get that statement.

A cable connection is shared at the user end. It's very easy for a over-sold stream or one in a huge condo to get saturated at peak times and drop to dismal transfer rates.

A DSL connection is not shared at the user end, although a lot of uploads at the switch could kill traffic...most people are leeches though and one of the reasons ADSL is mostly offered instead of SDSL.

The biggest problem with DSL (and I am needing to probably switch to cable because of it) is major distance limits. At 18000 ft you are out of the 1.5Mbps ball park and at half that out of 3-6Mbps. Crappy lines also play a big part and the telephone infrastructure is a lot older than cable ones. I am borderline right now. For the most part I cruise at 1.3Mbps/215k, but come bad weather or just a bad day and I am at 500k/215k with 100ms+ pings.

The big drawback is cable is about 50% more. It is a 6Mbps service rather than 1.5Mbps I am getting now though.

Å

All networks are oversubscribed (even the phones). This is part of the design process. From a perfomance perspective it is best to oversubscribe at the access layer - the cable modem, the dsl modem.

We can get into the theory and design aspects of protocol operation but when you get deep down into it TCP operates best with congestion at the access layer.

Essentially you use the capacity at the access layer to control TCP behavior. You're not seeing the forest for the trees. It's all choked at some point, and normally that choke point is scaled accordingly.

 

[kevnich2]

Originally posted by: spidey07
Best advice?

As a technology cable blows away DSL in every aspect. It all depends on the provider though and how they manage their capacity and network.

He speaks the truth. As a technology, cable can go extensively faster than DSL ever can over copper lines. But again, it does depend on the provider and how much capacity they have as well as how they have their network managed.

 

[TehMac]

hrmm, that's an interesting comment. Technology wise, I would imagine cable *should* be faster, but mine isn't. For one thing, its a lower tier. It used to be fast, but then my ma was a freaking dumbass and downgraded the service. This in turn means it takes like 13 hours to DL anything with the size "GB" in it.
So yes, cable can be faster, but the cable around me is overpriced garbage. I don't think this AT&T deal was a promo, but a scoop. Now it's 19.99 I think when I last checked. I'll call him come summer and see what's cooking.

 

[cpmer]

Originally posted by: MegaVovaN

Originally posted by: lyssword
the only thing better about cable is lower latencies for online games, it matters in shooter games like CS source other than that, its about the same.

disagreed. when some @sshat pulls 2gb of anime a day, your latencies will suck big time cuz you share cable with them...

Dont listen to this statement its entirely untrue. Cable systems set up a group of houses probably around 200 to 300 off of a node and that node is fed from fiber line which for the most part is unlimited amount bandwith. When they set up those nodes they set up bandwith allocation for worst case possibilities. Ive seen a saturated node have buisness come in and have a monster connection installed and yet it still didnt effect the customers on that node. This is rumor is very old and just not true anymore

 

[alkemyst]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: alkemyst

Originally posted by: spidey07
Best advice?

As a technology cable blows away DSL in every aspect. It all depends on the provider though and how they manage their capacity and network.

I don't get that statement.

A cable connection is shared at the user end. It's very easy for a over-sold stream or one in a huge condo to get saturated at peak times and drop to dismal transfer rates.

A DSL connection is not shared at the user end, although a lot of uploads at the switch could kill traffic...most people are leeches though and one of the reasons ADSL is mostly offered instead of SDSL.

The biggest problem with DSL (and I am needing to probably switch to cable because of it) is major distance limits. At 18000 ft you are out of the 1.5Mbps ball park and at half that out of 3-6Mbps. Crappy lines also play a big part and the telephone infrastructure is a lot older than cable ones. I am borderline right now. For the most part I cruise at 1.3Mbps/215k, but come bad weather or just a bad day and I am at 500k/215k with 100ms+ pings.

The big drawback is cable is about 50% more. It is a 6Mbps service rather than 1.5Mbps I am getting now though.

Å

All networks are oversubscribed (even the phones). This is part of the design process. From a perfomance perspective it is best to oversubscribe at the access layer - the cable modem, the dsl modem.

We can get into the theory and design aspects of protocol operation but when you get deep down into it TCP operates best with congestion at the access layer.

Essentially you use the capacity at the access layer to control TCP behavior. You're not seeing the forest for the trees. It's all choked at some point, and normally that choke point is scaled accordingly.

You are singing to the choir. I understand networking as I work with it.

I am not talking queueing theory. I am talking true oversubscription where they know they cannot service any group of users with what was sold to them. This happens a lot with cable, but not so much with DSL...because where the sharing takes place is different.

All net traffic is shared eventually usually. However; there is a big difference in the throughput 8 machines on a hub will get vs those same 8 machines on their own port of the switch.

The higher you push the sharing and at the fatter the pipe, the less concurrent connections affect it.

People are trying to turn this into a DSL vs Cable advocacy thread where both have their limitations.

More than 18000ft....probably cable. Less than 1000 ft and in a 1000 unit highrise...probably DSL.

Money no object, leased line FTW!

 

[alkemyst]

Originally posted by: cpmer

Originally posted by: MegaVovaN

Originally posted by: lyssword
the only thing better about cable is lower latencies for online games, it matters in shooter games like CS source other than that, its about the same.

disagreed. when some @sshat pulls 2gb of anime a day, your latencies will suck big time cuz you share cable with them...

Dont listen to this statement its entirely untrue. Cable systems set up a group of houses probably around 200 to 300 off of a node and that node is fed from fiber line which for the most part is unlimited amount bandwith. When they set up those nodes they set up bandwith allocation for worst case possibilities. Ive seen a saturated node have buisness come in and have a monster connection installed and yet it still didnt effect the customers on that node. This is rumor is very old and just not true anymore

DSLReports.com must have a bunch of liars posting.

 

[Ionizer86]

Since everyone else is comparing speeds etc, I've got another comment.

If you'd like to replace your landline with IP phone service at some point, that wouldn't work too well with DSL because chances are you need to subscribe to a landline to have the DSL internet access in the first place!

We have Earthlink and Sunrocket. Saves lots of money (one year of Sunrocket promo price $100 + fee = $107). The quality is reasonably acceptable if I'm not uploading too heavily concurrently.

 

[ShellGuy]

Its all about cost, how much do you want to pay, i have the best life as i work for the cable company in my area i pay 13.95 for 15x2 speeds, see about a job with them even partime in my area gets the 7mb x 512k svc free. But the cable here is on nodes not exceeding 300 subs, i have yet to be down, i also have cable phone which works great as well..



Will G.

 

[cpmer]

Originally posted by: ShellGuy
Its all about cost, how much do you want to pay, i have the best life as i work for the cable company in my area i pay 13.95 for 15x2 speeds, see about a job with them even partime in my area gets the 7mb x 512k svc free. But the cable here is on nodes not exceeding 300 subs, i have yet to be down, i also have cable phone which works great as well..



Will G.

I work for the cable company too but im jealous because i have to pay 10 extra a month just to get 8mbx512k internet the normal service here is 5mbx384k. Since ive been working with the cable company ive been to many houses around my neighboor hood and there are plenty of downloaders on my node probably most worst than me but i have never had any speed issues even during primetime. My biggest problem with my cable internet is the same problem that you could get from cable dsl or whatever. Once my bandwith leaves roadrunner system it goes onto to level 3 which is completly awful. Ive had several problems with level 3's routing and high spikes going through there hops.

 

[Zolty]

Call AT&T and ask them how long your loop length is, if it is less than 12,000ft you are good for 3mb no problem. Between 12-18kft and it will be a progressively lower but probably faster than 720 down.

 

[TehMac]

Well I did some talking with my dad (yes, parents run the place) and he's a bit queasy with the idea. He doesn't like the idea because of it being DSL. He did say in regards to internet speed upgrade he'll try and persuade the RR guys to give us a free upgrade or we'll move to another company that can offer us more for less of a price. He also doesn't like the idea of the DSL guys coming in and installing everything even though I said I could do it. It's kinda lame, but it's his house and I'll have to deal.

I'm interested in getting our current cable a free boost though. I wonder how it'll turn out. At the very worst, we'll probably just get Comcast from my bro, or upgrade a little to Road Runner.

 

[ShellGuy]

Nice thing about cable atleast with my company is no contract unlike Verizon DSL or FIOS,



Will G.

 

[MegaVovaN]

What do you mean make DSL people come in and install? He wants to pay $100-200 for installation too?

Here's how it works:
1. you get a package from your postman
2. in package, there is modem and splitters
3. you plug splitters in every phone outlet in da house and modem to one of them
4. wait for company to switch you to DSL on their end
DONE!

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: alkemyst

Originally posted by: cpmer

Originally posted by: MegaVovaN

Originally posted by: lyssword
the only thing better about cable is lower latencies for online games, it matters in shooter games like CS source other than that, its about the same.

disagreed. when some @sshat pulls 2gb of anime a day, your latencies will suck big time cuz you share cable with them...

Dont listen to this statement its entirely untrue. Cable systems set up a group of houses probably around 200 to 300 off of a node and that node is fed from fiber line which for the most part is unlimited amount bandwith. When they set up those nodes they set up bandwith allocation for worst case possibilities. Ive seen a saturated node have buisness come in and have a monster connection installed and yet it still didnt effect the customers on that node. This is rumor is very old and just not true anymore

DSLReports.com must have a bunch of liars posting.

Yes, it's full of shrills that don't understand communications.

 

[ShellGuy]

Nor do they unerstand how cable networks work now a days, since the upgrades to the networks


Will G.