Hey,
I am considering purchasing either a Cable or DSL line for my home. Here is my situation, I am doing heavy surfing with alot of MP3 downloads. I also have alot mail coming through and like to spend alot of time online and normally like to keep the connection open when I leave. I am looking for the fast connection speeds and reliable.

CABLE:
500k to 1.54MB guaranteed by @home.com
$39.95/month
1 Dynamic IP

DSL:
144k to 400k guaranteed by Verizon
$39.95/month
1 Static IP address

Thanks for posting.

Jim

Well, I own Cable & ADSL.
The DSL you are getting is probably aDSL.

From what I have experienced, Cable is faster but less stable. I have been using Cable for a year now and It has been down for total 2 months out of a year.
aDSL is slower but much stable although it is not stable as T1 and such. It has been down less than 2 hours out of 6 months.

Download Speed :
It's from my lines.
DSL goes for max 180kb/s
Cable goes for max 250kb/s
Then again, Cable is a lot lower at rush hour, goes for max 10kb/s while DSL has no rush hour lag.
aDSL has very low upstream. It can only go for max 18kb/s while cable goes for max 50kb/s

Those informations are from my experience.

Thanks klisis,
Im still not sure which one I want to have though. If Cable is down alot, I dont really think I want it, but if DSL has slower download speeds, Im not too sure what I would do. Also, if I choose something like SDSL, it could get up into the hundreds of dollars a month range, which I dont want to do. So, im not so sure what I want. Anyone eles want to share their experiecnes.

Jim

lots of info about both DSL and cable at
http://www.dslreports.com/

I say you go for aDSL.
You can have the maximum download speed almost all day while Cable can be slow and fast at any given time.

I only mentioned the maximum download speeds.
But if I do average download speeds, I am sure they both would be about the same, considering the slowness of cable at rush hours, then go for stable one.

Thanks jonglenn, Ill look into that.

Also, Klisis, I called up Comcast and they guaranteed that my cable modem connection would not slump below 500k. Do you believe them and should I believe them?

Jim

hehe. Can we trust any of company out there? ;) Only experience shows the truth :)

Originally posted by klisis
hehe. Can we trust any of company out there? ;) Only experience shows the truth :)

Are you with Comcast? or another company. Comcast uses @home.com, but I think the main problems with the cable intenet is that the Cable Companies cannot keep these things up. Am I right? Or is it @home.com

Jim

I am with @home.(Cable)
I am with Bell.(aDSL)

DSL is more stable, and more secure overall, Cable is faster less reliable so make a call.

I say DSL, but if you are ordering from Verizon that may take a while. I ordered DSL almost three months ago and I'm still waiting for GTE to get over here and install something. A ultility truck came here about 3 weeks ago and the guy said he would be back the next day to install things.... think again. When I try to call them I sit on hold for 45 minutes just to here someone say "Contact your DSL ISP" which is no help. (I can't get directly from Verizon, not that I would want to)

Just my thoughts and a small warning what you may be heading into.

Yeah, I heard alot about the finger pointing that goes on when the DSL doesnt work. My friend tried to order DSL for his house and that was in December. Still nothing has gone on with his set up. Verizon will tell him to talk to the ISP, and then the ISP would tell him to talk to Verizon. And he is still waiting.

I was hoping that if I have Verizon as my ISP, then the fingers could only point to Verizion.

Jim

It took me 1 and half weeks to get my cable online.
it took me 1 month and 15 days to get my aDSL online.
:)

it took me 1 month and 15 days to get my aDSL online.

grrr... :D

Cable is not necessarily faster, so always check the speeds offered rather than making a decision on the technology itself. Neither technology is operating anywhere close to their top speed.

I've mentioned service for both in my area (South Florida) before, so I'll just recap briefly.

Cable modem 600 kbps maximum downstream $60 + min $10 for cable tv (I have a DSS dish), $70 total

ADSL through Bell South, actual 1.472 mbps downstream, $39.95

Cable is much s l o w e r here.

Hmmmm, I dont know much aboutr cable, and Verizon DSL is not available here. I use local Telco.
However, when researching a problem for a customer I found the following article which May help anyone actually using Verizon as their provider.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/16380.html

Essentially it gives a work around for what they term as a bad protocol. Hope it helps.

I have DSL from tds.net. Took 5 days from the day I placed the order. I couldn't be happier.

Well I heard there was a place to get it free, but then someone said it went down, I dont remember the name, al you had to do was buy a 200 modem, and have a banner.

Hey, Im looking into TDS.com, looks promising.

Anyway, the freedsl was Winfire.com, I was signed up with them, but they never got around to giving me DSL. They went of out business cause the VC guys pulled out. Thats why I wondering if I should get DSL or Cable.

Jim

Hmm get dsl from Bell if you can. I don't think bell goes out of business anytime(?) soon :p

Well, techincally Bell Atlantic, which I had, was bought by Verizon. So now, all my phone bills and the service trucks that come around say Verizon on them instead of Bell Atlantic.

Jim

Originally posted by Duster
Cable is not necessarily faster, so always check the speeds offered rather than making a decision on the technology itself. Neither technology is operating anywhere close to their top speed.

[snip]



The other thing to consider is the back office part of the connection. Regardless of how fast DSL and cable are in bringing your connection to the home office (whether it be the cable company, or the phone comapny), if there is not enough router capacity in the back office, you will get poor throughput.

This, unfortunately, is something you won't find out until it is too late.