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General discussion

DSL or Cable?

Feb 21, 2004 12:49AM PST

After 6 years of dial-up, my town is finally getting DSL and Cable services. My question is which is better? I only know people who have DSL. They say it is great compared to dial-up but how is it to cable? Thanks in advance.

Discussion is locked

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What do you want to do...
Jan 10, 2005 8:33PM PST

Cable has very high downstream bandwidth but the upstream bandwidth is generally 128 kbps and can go to 256 kbps. If you are primarily surfing and downloading then cable may be best.
ADSL offers up to 1500 kbps downstream and 768 kbps upstream. SDSL generally offers 768 kbps up and down. If you are telecommuting or doing a lot of uploading, as in website maintance or development, you will do better with DSL.
Of course, if you can get XDSL this matches Cable for downstream and offers 768 kbps or better upstream. This is definately the best of both worlds.

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DSL vs CABLE
Jan 10, 2005 10:13PM PST

DSL isn't available in my area, so the other options were to stick with dial up... unacceptable... satellite... pretty costly... or go with cable modem. We chose cable modem offered by Adelphia. Service is reliable and has so far, been uninterrupted. Installation was relatively simple and when I did call the help desk for a minor problem, the tech was patient and well-informed, walking me through steps leading to correction of the problem... which it turns out, I generated. Friends who have talked about DSL have all had problems and irregular service. Hope this helps.

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DSL's Freebies
Jan 10, 2005 10:36PM PST

I've had SNET dialup since 1995 and their DSL which then became SBC Yahoo! DSL since 2000 and have been very happy with it. Granted it may not be as fast as cable, but I generally get around 1.4 mbps down / 384 Kbps up speeds. It even runs during power outages - the last one my computer stayed on when the power went out due to my APC backup supply. I was surprised that the DSL stayed on as well before I shut everything down gracefully. If I had a 12V car battery next to the computer I could have conceivably kept going, maybe ... The TelCo CO has battery backup and generators, so it makes sense.

The other thing is that SBC Yahoo! gives you a lot with your package. The extra ability to dialup has come in handy a few times when I was working on computers at other's houses that didn't have internet access at all. Also SNET gives 10Mb of accessible web space for a home page or file posting (like for eBay photos). Yahoo! gives upwards of 500 Mb of free Briefcase space (that's a lot of MP3s!) now to new DSL subscribers (I'm going to complain - I want that as well) plus a GeoCities account. Not a bad deal for $27 a month (with the SBC complete phone package) for a reliable reasonably fast broadband connection.

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cable isp
Jan 10, 2005 10:54PM PST

I live in a smaller community in southwest Oklahoma. I when I made the decision to go with cable, I has just gone through about 2 months of looking at modems, switches, services, and preformance. When I made the choice for cable it came down to speed and availability. SBC just didn't provide DSL to all of the community where I live. SBC also didn't provide the speeds that cable offered. I was making the move from dial up to broadband. I was thrilled to death when I tried my broadband connection for the first time. It was shocking how fast I was moving between sites. I have ran into only a few problems with my cable isp. I have had cable for a few years now and have only had 2 problems with their service, both times were due to servers going down. Out side of that it has always pretty much screemed. I have now moved to another address and took my cable connection with me. The cost is still a little higher, about $10 dollars a month. I am lucky in one regard. The company I work for has me working virtual officed from my home and pays for my broadband connect.

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Is security a factor?
Jan 10, 2005 10:56PM PST

Something many people do not know about Cable is that you share the bandwidth with others. DSL is a dedicated service (dedicated subscriber line) and isin't shared with others like cable is. In the case of Cable, your information is sent over the lines in packets with everyone else sharing that line. Your computer is identified by it's IP and MAC address and uses this information to identify it's packets. As packets move over the lines, your computer is scanning them and looking for packets that it can "read" using the ip and mac addressing and disreguarding any packets that do not match. Now the problem...anyone sharing that cable path can run a packet sniffer in promiscuous mode and collect "all" the packets that pass through and reconstruct them into readable formats such email messages, web requests etc... This enables anyone with the knowhow to intercept and read your email, track your web browsing, Instant messanging, and more...

Keep in mind that this is a very generalized description.

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Cable Vs. DSL
Jan 10, 2005 11:06PM PST

I have cable by comcast. It's great when the service isn't down. Sometimes its just a reset of the modem that fizes the problem, other times its something with comcast. I have tried DSL and if you'rejust using it to surf the net and stuff then DSL is the way to go since it's cheaper (well in my area it is). In Montgomery County, MD I'm paying $43 a month for cable internet and my cousin is paying $30 a month for DSL. If you plan on downloading large size files then maybe you should consider cable internet since it is faster. Though I think other areas DSL has risen to 1.5 mbps. Here DSL is still 764kbps. In a nut shell, cable cost more but is faster. My suggestion is shop around and compare.

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cable vs dsl
Jan 10, 2005 11:34PM PST

we'll this might help. take a hame and cheese sandwitch try puting it threw a straw thats DSL
now take same sandwitch put it threw a 6 inch pvc pipe
it will go right threw thats cable. good luck

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DSL vs Cable
Jan 10, 2005 11:39PM PST

Even though cable (broadband) is suppose to be better (and faster) it is dsl that is superior. With DSL we never had a problem with it's usage, always reliable.Cable (broadband) was a nightmare for us. We could not get the email to work right, the support was really poor, in fact at one point we were told that cable was not for email, but for gaming. The same company mind you had these two very different opinions.We have tried two different cable companies and the experiences were very much similar. Each had conflicting opinions about services, options, and executions.While dial up and DSL are a phone function service, They should not dabble in broad band area.Like wise Broadband needs to stick with Television and not mess with phones and like things.Broadband is to cable; like gas is to diesel. They do the same function , but VERY VERY differently.While some can be contributed to operator error, I believe it is unlikely all my fault. Especially since we were trouble free with dsl and quite the opposite with cable. I never crashed with dsl, but off more than on with cable. If I ever put my computer back on line it will be with DSL.Watchdog (Dennis)

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DSL or Cable
Jan 11, 2005 12:13AM PST

I can tell you live in the States because my sister and Husband who is a marnie in North Carolina has advised me that cable was not working for them either. Here in Canada cable is the best thing because like my self and my friends - we had DSL and had nothing but trouble during peak times and in the wee hours of the morning. Cable is the best.

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soon the answer is going to be ADSL2+
Jan 11, 2005 12:06AM PST

they're already deploying it in europe : ADSL2+.
For 30 euro they have 20Mbits down / 1Mbits up, and the package also contains free telephone over the internet, and basic 30 TV chanels over the internet as well (that's right, using the DSL line).
I don't know why this is taking so long to take place in the US... Am I the only one screaming for this ?

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DSL or Cable
Jan 11, 2005 12:08AM PST

I perfer cable because there are no hang ups - such as too many people on line. I had DSL and it would cut me off at any time of day. For instance I was working at 2AM and it cut me off from my server at work. From ten on I went to cable and never had a problem. You also have better speed uploading and downloading. Here in Canada Cable is better than DSL. All my friends switched to cable from DSL for the same reasons I did. Here you now can download up to 1 G in seconds where DSL doesn't do this.

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Cable or DSL
Jan 11, 2005 12:22AM PST

I have DSL at office. It was the only commercial venue around when we went online. I have Charter broadband cable at home. I find Boadband more robust, especially on download at 3M, upload is still at 256.
Downloads from the internet at home seem to fly across vs at the office, where they come much slower. Both have been very reliable and except for downloads seem to operate about the same!

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I have both at home
Jan 11, 2005 2:00AM PST

I have both at home, so I'm in a unique position to judge both. I have Adelphia cable for my cable, 3mbs down and 256kbs up (it used to be 128kbps but they increased it due to pressure from DSL). The cable is fast! It will outrun the DSL any day of the week, although it is shared, I know of at least 2 people in my neighborhood with cable, but they don't seem to slow me down much. However, Adelphia has had more outtages in the past month than my sDSL has ever had in the 2 years I've had it, which is about once or twice. My sDSL is not with my local telephone company, BellSouth, but with some 3rd party company in Miami. I used to have aDSL be with Telocity which got bought out by DirectTV and then they dropped aDSL alltogether, and even then, it was rock solid in reliability and decent speed. I never liked BellSouth, one thing I love about DSL is your ability to choose who you want. You have a lot more options. I'm relatively close to the CO and I've had no issues. My next door neighboors have bellsouth DSL and say it's ok for the most part but their DNS servers tend to go down, or they tend to be slow at times, but that's the ISP's fault, not the technology.

So for awesome speed and quick install (less than a day), go with Cable. Disadvantages are the shared speed, which doesn't really affect much, and you get no options but your cable company.

For good speed reliability, and general overall better connections (my games like it more than cable, less packet loss, lower ping times), as well as the ability to choose your provider, go with DSL. I don't ever recommend the local telco for DSL. Disadvantages is the install time.

A tech once explained to me the technologies on a technical level. Cable is fast, but it's clumsy, it sends the data fast and hard with little to no regard for packet loss and such, it just expects that TCP/IP will compensate by re-requesting the dropped packets. Which is ok, but not so clean. To the naked eye you wouldn't notice it. DSL is a cleaner technology, it's got mechanism's for line speed control and flow control and all sorts of things, to minimize the packet loss, if any packets are lost, tcp/ip will re-request them and all's well. But he said a 3mbs cable will usually not perform as well in sensitive applications like VOIP or Gaming versus using DSL. He said that even an older/slower 128k/128k ISDN is cleaner than Cable. But you know what, I've recommended Cable to many of my clients and they have little to no problems, except the occasional downtime.

I usually say "try cable first, since you can get it quickly, if it sucks or goes down too often, then order aDSL, a month later when DSL is installed, drop the cable modem. Adelphia doesn't require contracts."

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I Have Cable
Jan 11, 2005 2:17AM PST

i used dsl and cable before but i use cable now i have never had any problems with it i have a 5mb/ps connection
and i love the speed as far as tech support go's i never have to call them as most problems i have had were on my end 'ie' computer or software problems and i fix them my self i like cable becuase i do not have to install any software to connect all i do is hook up the cable modem to my router or my nic and i'm on line Grin

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DSL or Cable
Jan 11, 2005 2:30AM PST

I'm from a small community outside of Detroit, MI. I've had Cable almost as soon as it was offered in my area (6-7 years). The name of the companies changed but the broadband cable has held up.
From my experience, cable has the widest bandwith of either DSL or Cable. My ISP continues to add the apporiate servers to keep the speed up. I just tried C/Net's link on testing my cable and it was pegged at 1.8 mps, that's better then a T-1. I have had a few outages but noting material. My service has generally been between 1 to 2 mps.
Cable's bandwidth is large enough to handle more services then the ISP's are currently offering. Currently Comcast in my area offers Digital Movies and some programs that you can start at anytime you want to watch them. This makes their server network quite complexed. The ISP is only limited to the equipment and applications they attach to their cable.

So with Cable your options in the future may only be limited to the size of your pocket book.

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DSL or Cable
Jan 11, 2005 3:06AM PST

I have chosen to go with DSL from Bellsouth. It was offered in my area and my brother had trid it first and recommended it. I found the initial modems were prone to failure and a little disheartening. Not being that experienced in computers although I have built a couple and they are still working, (wish I could say the same for my Gateway and Dell, but that is another story). The biggest reason I have stayed with DSL is the service I have received from the tech department. They have always gotten me back on line and helped me with other problems that were unrelated to thier service. I have called them when I knew it was a software problem of Microsoft and they have answered my questions and were a great help. When they ask "If they can be of help on anything else?" I just ask them what about this or that, and they always seem to help and are more helpfull that either Microsoft or Dell. I just have to give the phone # to my system and no computer code # or system serial #. They just help. So I have stuck with DSL and Bellsouth.

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DSL or Cable
Jan 11, 2005 3:51AM PST

I have had cable for almost 3years. Quite frankly with the rates going up the way they are for cable tv and cable internet and not much improvements from either, perhaps an additional channel in the past 2yrs. I could not see much of a difference pulling up a web page with either.

DSL maybe slower, but $29.95 is very good compared to $44.95 with Comcast. It may be a tad bit slower... but at least I save $180 after 12 months... so the additional 2 or 3 seconds it may take with DSL I could take the trade off for $180 in my pocket.... need new car tyres anyway... this $180 saving helps.

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Go the route of Cable
Jan 11, 2005 5:59AM PST

It really depends on who you have for your cable provider. I can tell you this, after having DSL since it came out I will never go back. SBC's support sucks the big one. I recently moved into a neighborhood that had a all in one provider for Cable, Telephone, Alarm Monitoring, and Broadband Internet. On a bad day I am getting 3MB on a speed test and a really good day I am getting 5MB+. So if you need the speed then go with Cable. If you are just looking to upgrade and are a moderate user DSL should be fine but don't expect any help with. 99% of all DSL providers make you do the set up yourself. So if you are not tech savy pay the extra go Cable they usually send people out to set everything up including installing the network adapter in your PC.

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Hands down Cable
Jan 11, 2005 6:17AM PST

Both DSL and Cable are hi-speed broadband services, however I live in Chicago and my experience showed me how DSL can have a downside. Depending on how far away you live from a Central Office of your DSL provider, the signal loss can result in large loss of speed. Cable, unlike DSL does not really suffer that much of a loss despite the long distance. Cable also proveds a static IP address and in most cases has a downstream of about 3.0 mbps vs DSL = 1.5 mpbs. Either way the difference in the cost between the two usually decides which one most customers pick. If you are just surfing the internet and want to save some money go for DSL. If you wanna have a fast cruise on the information superhighway, download like a maniac, and have more then one computer connected to the internet, and dont mind payin a bit extra, go for Cable.

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dsl vs cable
Jan 11, 2005 7:55AM PST

Well, i'm fairly new to posting on cnet but i saw the topic in the newsletter and i thought its gonna be a some sort of a presentation or discussion about tests that have been done about it. I wanted to see some facts about this to asure me what i already know, but u know i wanted numbers. I'm using pc's alot, i do software programming, and i've been working with pc's and pc hardware for over 11 years now. so...when it comes to internet i got quite a history. So, the difference is...with cable you as a user gets connected to a "nexus" line that runs through your area. Each area gets one of those lines, but each person in the area connects to the same line so if one of the users downloads a lot more then any1 else or if a larger group gets online at the same time and use up a large chunck of that broadband well then its gonna slow down all other ppl that were connected to that line. With dsl, its one private line for each user, so each user gets exactly as much speed as he is paying for. Thats about it.

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DSL or Cable? CABLE!
Jan 11, 2005 8:27AM PST

I'm not sure what part of the country your in, but my opinion is cable is the only way to go if you want speed.
Granted I pay a little more for cable, but you get what you pay for. My phone connection has been out more than my cable connection.
I've been on all three.
DSL is alright, ten times better than dial-up. But I maxed out at 1400kbs on DSL. On cable I'm tipping around 3270kbs.
Call me impatient, but I don't like waiting on a slow connection. If your just checking email and light browsing, DSL is cheaper. But gaming, downloading, and mega surfing, spend the extra $10.00 or $15.00 for cable. The speed makes the internet more pleasent to use.
But remember, both DSL and cable, your on the internet all the time, so have a good firewall and antivirus running at all times.

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DSL over Cable
Jan 11, 2005 8:44AM PST

I know people that have cable and they complain about being slow during peak times. I use DSL and have not noticed any decrease in speed at any time of day or night. I had DSL from SBCglobal and had a lot of problems with it but earthlink has been fine.

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I'll take DSL any day!
Jan 11, 2005 9:24AM PST

I've had both, and besides the almost doubled cost of cable, you're forced to share bandwidth with every other cable user who's online at the same time in your area, which slows your browsing down. Unless cable lowers their prices and finds a way to eliminate the bandwidth sharing issue, DSL's the only way to surf!

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DSL slower, cable only affected in huge areas like Manhattan
Jan 22, 2005 8:45AM PST

dsl - u must live within 3 mile wired distance. cable good any distance. cable priced higher but way faster.

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dsl wayyy more reliable
Jun 28, 2005 7:54AM PDT

I live in the suburbs. I have found cable to be very satisfying for television ... hdtv etc. But for the Internet it's been totally unreliable and I have terminated that part of my service. DSL is now $14.95 a month for this year; perhaps a tad slower than cable. But I could pay $10 more and have faster speed. Now that I have DSL, I am on line without interruption something I never experienced for even a day with cable no matter how hard they worked at it.

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DSL or Cable
Jan 11, 2005 9:47AM PST

I use DSL for the pricing which, for me is about $20/mo less and I am close to T-1 speed. Now, I am close to the Central Telephone office. The downside to DSL is distance for the Central Office. The further away the more your spped will degrade.

But I'll tell ya Wireless Internet, and I don't mean hot spot wireless, is not long off. It will be T-1 speed upload and download whether you're in your car or your house. Be on the watch.

Omd

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Depends
Jan 11, 2005 10:11AM PST

Check out the price first. Cable depends on how many are using it in a given area. DSL is constant depending on how much you buy.

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Cable is the way to go
Jan 11, 2005 10:41AM PST

I've had high-speed cable via Comcast (GA) for almost a year. Never any problems at all! Paying $55/month via a special promotion & my speed is always at 4MBps DL & 386Kbps UL. But there was one time when I was doing too much downloading (864GBs to be percise) & they suspended my service. They said I overloaded the node *laughing* but service was back up within 10mins.

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You are lucky
Jan 11, 2005 2:19PM PST

Where I live adsl has only just arrived with a max speed of 1024kps.
The only cable is TV only and not very good quality at that.

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Dsl or Cable
Jan 12, 2005 6:04AM PST

It all depends on your speeds offered by each. my area had DSL at 256 to 786 but my cable connection is 3000 for the same price as DSL.I'm located in Washington and every company DSL or Cable all have different speeds at seperate prices you'll need to compare each. Since Comcast up our speed to 3000 it's amazing. Goodluck BJ.