mac03

OK need some advise here.

Time for Broad Band... dial-up has driven me insane for a decade + now.

Someone weigh out DSL vs. Cable

The price difference between the two is tolerable.

DSL offers 3 levels ranging from 256k -1.5MB - 3MB
at $35 - $43 - $55

Cable offers for $45, think it's 2.5MB, not sure exactly.


Anyway, I've heard things about Cable that if alot of people in your neighborhood are online with it at the same time it bogs down. Any truth to that? Which do you use/prefer DSL / Cable ?

bendsley

Where I'm from (west texas), cable is the best broadband service around. It competes with Wireless and DSL.

Currently using Cox Cable 5mb down and 1mb up.

__________________
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cyrnel

Do you have cable television service? If not Comcast dings us another $10. I assume the other cables do that same?

I'm using both cable and dsl here on a load-balancing router. Each go down briefly once a day or so, depending on weather. Having both means I can mostly ignore the problems. They both have their share. Cable tends to have faster download, if the remote sites are fast enough to let you notice. DSL has faster up. I have fewer hops out to the world with dsl but higher latency because of frame relay interleaving. It's $35 for 1.5Mb/892Kb vs. cable at $54 for 3Mb/256Kb (no TV service).

soccerchamp76

I have tried DSL 3 different times (because SBC offered sweet ass performance/price deals).
All 3 times we went back to the sturdy crutch that is Cable internet. Now, Charter Communications boosted their speed to 3-meg service. I love it and have been lovin for many years now.

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sashime76

If I remember correctly, DSL speed is also determined by the distance from your home to the communications center. Of course, the further you are, the slower it is. They may tell you 256K or 1.5MB but you won't get that if you are on the higher end of the distance limit.

Cable won't downgrade with the increase of distance. However, if you have many neighbors in the area all subscribe to cable modem service, you will have to share the same bandwidth (whatever it is determined by the cable co.). Lucky for me, most of my immediate neighbors are dish users.

Bratwurst

I first had DSL through Directv when they offered it, then when they shut down I switched to DSL through speakeasy.net. I haven't had a single issue with it. Speakeasy might be a slight bit more expensive than other providers but I get a static address and they don't block any ports. So I run a mail server at home. Speed is very good.

bendsley

Go here, http://www.dslreports.com/ , and see what other people are using and saying about the service in your area.

It will give you info on DSL, Cable and other highspeed access.

__________________
"You hear the one about the fella who died, went to the pearly gates? St. Peter let him in. Sees a guy in a suit making a closing argument. Says, "Who's that?" St. Peter says, "Oh, that's God. Thinks he's Denny Crane."

LewisCouch

If you need a static IP address, you should consider DSL rather than cable. I'm not sure, but supposedly broadband assigns your IP on the fly. I say unsure, because my IP address has not changed in quite some time.

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-- Massimo d'Azeglio

billege

Broadband connections are, as far as I know, static IPs. Since you're always connected, how would it work if your IP changed at random while you were using it? It wouldn't, thus they're static.

Cable users to share the available bandwidth from thier local node. However, for a few years now every cable provider with half a brain has been using bandwitdth throttling. I get to use only what I pay for, and so does everyone else on my node. There is no speed up or down when use gets heavy.

If you want a technical explaination of the two's bennies vs downfalls, google a bit, and you'll find all sorts of articles.

For what it's worth, I don't have any friends that were happy with thier DSL connection. Everyone I know that tried DSL ended up much happier with cable.
I have cable from Road Runner (Columbus, OH) and I'm very happy with it. 3.5mips or so, and I think I pay $45ish a month for it.

The only thing that would get someone's panties in a bunch w/cable is that upload speeds are limited to what, 40K/sec? Yeah, 40k. So, if you're planning on serving a lot of data, or some such, you'd better look at DSL which has much higher upstream speeds available. If you're not, don't worry about it. Just get cable and get it done.

__________________
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bendsley

The aren't static unless you pay for them. They may seem static because they may not change for months on end, but they are still considered dynamic ip addresses. The DHCP server just happens to be assigning based on MAC addresses and usually just gives you the same IP address. The DHCP might pull every 86,400 second (1 day) or every 604,800 second (1 week) depending on how the ISP has it setup.

Aah, the power of cacheing.

I have a friend that lived a block from the where the DSLAMs were located. He acheived 5mbit very easily.

definition DSLAM: A digital subscriber line access multiplexer, (DSLAM) is a multiplexer located in the telephone company exchange that provides consumers access to DSL services over twisted pair copper cabling.

The device separates the voice and data components from the subscriber lines and aggregates the data for sending over the network. The DSLAM usually aggregates lines at a contention ratio of 50:1 or 20:1.

__________________
"You hear the one about the fella who died, went to the pearly gates? St. Peter let him in. Sees a guy in a suit making a closing argument. Says, "Who's that?" St. Peter says, "Oh, that's God. Thinks he's Denny Crane."

Bratwurst

Your IP address doesn't change most likely because your router hasn't had to ask for a new one from the DHCP server. If you unplugged your cable/dsl modem for a bit, or say you lost power for a few hours and your DHCP lease had expired, you may get a different address. It just depends if someone else made a request to the DHCP server while your modem was offline and it served them your old IP address. Since you rarely ever drop your connection, your IP address will rarely change. But the possibility does exist.

So if you want to run a server at home that requires a static address, you need to actually order one to be absolutely sure. There are a few utilities out there though that get around this. You use them as a 3rd party host and they forward the traffic to you regardless if your IP changed.

spindles

Cable rocks! though the upspeed we get (128K) is pretty bad. The theoretical max is 10M down, though. It actually goes quite close to that at times.

Yes, it does depend on your neighbours, but the quality of the ISP will have a huge bearing on this (i.e. do they have enough bandwidth for their number of subscribers).

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AngelicVampire

Most broadband providers in the UK can be fooled into giving you an effective static IP address, they lease the IP to your line while it is in use. So if you have a router running 24/7 you effectively have a static IP address. I had 6months uptime on one IP however then my flatmate disconnected the router and had to change my website pointers... ohh well.

Cable seems like a better deal than broadband here, both share their lines however cable is normally at a lower contention rate than broadband lines (50:1 for broadband, 30-35:1 for most Cable companies that I asked)

neekap

Depends on the ISP. Since I moved to a new condo in October 2003, my IP hasn't changed once. And that's after numerous cable and power outages. Sometimes the cable outages were pretty spotty and I just left the cable modem unplugged for up to a week when someone else could have snagged my IP address, but I've kept the same one. Then again, my parents have Adelphia and I've seen a good two or three dozen different IP addresses there.

mikec

Cable, Cable, CABLE!!! If you have the choice of cable or DSL, go Cable every time. I have dealt with too many people who have had too many issues with DSL to say this confidently. Even if Cable's more expensive, the few extra bucks are worth it.

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cyrnel

Each case varies. One or the other may be better in one region and flop when you move somewhere else. I've been on both technologies since they were rolled out in silicon valley and in two states since and have had equal problems with each. If you're within 1-2miles of your CO then DSL can work great. If beyond that distance make sure you have a trial period. Intermittent connections are a pain. Have a block party. Speak to neighbors about problems with their service. Find out if they had surprises, and how responsive were the respective providers?

I have an older neighbor who can't stand either. (Really, I think she found her limit at VCR programming and she can't stand call-centers.) She runs into problems and bounces between services every six months.

BTW, go into your local officemax/staples or clone. They often have better introductory deals than you get in the mail. Our local officemax has a promo with Comcast for 6mo cable internet at $19.95/mo with no commitment (29.95/mo without TV).