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General discussion

Reliability of DSL vs cable

May 1, 2008 4:27AM PDT

We have a MAC/PC household and are ready to switch away from Earthlink DSL to either AT&T DSL or Comcast cable. I can't find any uptime/reliability data that compares the two.

Discussion is locked

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Both 99% uptime.
May 1, 2008 7:05AM PDT

What may dog you finding a site with uptimes is that such can be damned since one user will have an issue that takes months to fix and another like me has some uninterrupted usage for years.

So let's call it 99%?

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Avoid Comcast and AT&T if you have any other options
May 29, 2008 12:14PM PDT

Computerworld published their last broadband survey in July 2007. It's at:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9027230&pageNumber=4

I can confirm that our personal experience with Comcast cable internet mirrors these survey results. Reliability is terrible!! But when service is up, their download and upload are adequate. Just what it shows in this survey.

We've had Comcast internet for 3 years and it has continued to get worse. It's obviously a contention problem, since we have no connection or very frequent interruptions (one or more a minute) every Saturday afternoon and every weekend night. The last week, we've had this problem EVERY NIGHT! It?s gotten so bad that I?ve had to discontinue use of the internet until later at night, when some of the people around here have gone to bed so more bandwidth is available.

I've also talked to people with AT&T and they report terrible reliability too. Unfortunately we're up in the mountains with the only broadband options being Comcast cable internet and satellite. We tried Starband satellite internet service for about 9 months and the reliability was even worse than cable. So we're stuck with this atrocious Comcast cable internet service (or I should say lack of it) until we move or until someone else offers broadband service in this area (I'm not holding my breath though).

Bottom line - Avoid Comcast & AT&T broadband service if you can get any other alternative in your area!!!

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Really?
May 30, 2008 8:41AM PDT

I have Comcast/Time Warner/Roadrunner (pick one). Zero problems. Currently running 10 Meg down, one Meg up.

I've had them for at least five uears with only one or two outages and that was squirrels chewing the cable. Reliability has been good for me.

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So what else is new? Hehe.
Jun 8, 2008 2:09AM PDT

My netzero DSL is the same way; there are a few hours a day the system is completely unusable. I problaly would get very pissed if I were using it for business.