Which is faster? Dsl or Cable

i'm just wondering which i should get.
SBC DSL or Comcast Cable? Anyone know which is faster?

 

generally yeah, but it also really depends on where you live. For example, the cable connections around my house are horrible, and there are tons of people on the cable system, so at my house cable was horrible. But I've had SBC DSL for over 5 years now, and constantly clock over 1.5M. I know that cable claims to go over 3M, but cable is only as good as its provider. Time Warner sucks, and puts too many people on their networks so its slow. It also helps that I live a block away from the main phone station in the valley, so I get above average speend. Some people love cable, but I'm happy with DSL.

 

Generally cable is faster, but as djscoop said it depends on your area. Cable is a shared medium, which means you share the available bandwidth with everyone else in your neighborhood that is on it. If there is a lot of people in your neighborhood on cable then your connection will be slower. DSL is not shared. Only you are on your pair of wires all the way back to the phone company central office.

I am on DSL and though it is slower it is much more reliable than the cable I had. I have used Comcast, @Home, Adelphia, and Time Warner Road Runner in the past and all of them had many more outages than my DSL has had, so I wouldn't make the decision on which to go with on just speed alone. Other considerations are what kind of services does the ISP offer? For example Comcast doesn't have Usenet servers. They give you a very limited account on Giganews and you have to pay extra if you want to use more. My DSL provider has very good Usenet access and it costs nothing extra.

 

I have Comcast cable right now, and it has always lived up to it's potential. That could be (most definitely is) from the fact that I live basically in a place where people think an Earthlink 5x dial up is great. The reliability of your cable is also dependant on the wiring of your house. We had many problems when we first got it, but when we cleaned up our connections, and got as few splitters between the main line and the modem as possible, it has worked perfectly always at 3Mb. Comcast is actually upgrading the 3Mb connections to 4Mb by the end of March.
Basically, if you live in a "simple town," then cable will be great. If you live somewhere where everyone has cable, it won't be as good, but I can't imagine it dropping below DSL's 1.5Mb.

 

The downloading speed of cable generaly is higher then dsl, BUT, if your one of the unlucky cable users that has your UPLOAD speed capped (like me) then that can really suck. Especially if you like to use torrents. I have 3 meg donwload but 30 kb\s upload.

 

30k upload is pretty bad. I have 768 up, 1.5M down with SBC DSL. To expand on what Xian said, I know so many people (suckers in my opinion) that opted to get cable, and they're always calling me bitching that their internet is down. Around here we have Time Warner and Adelphia. I just laugh at them. Like I said, I've had the same DSL service for 5 years, and its gone out maybe 6 times. And usually for just a few hours, when they're upgrading or something like that. Until cable is more reliable, and can offer substantially higher up and down speeds, my 1.5M DSL suits me just fine.

 

I have Comcast and have no major complaints. Speed is good and interuptions are very rare. Once in the last year at 3am for maintenance. Playing games, I average 40 for a ping, no lag for any online game. My only complants are that they don't want to run a dedicated line from the pole unless it's a new install or if your having issues with speed and/or connection. Also which is all of them, the price could be lower, especially when you subscribe to thier cable programming. Check out to see if Wide Open West (WOW) is your area. They are fast and reliable, they limit the amount of people per node, and have or had competative prices. Also they have three internet connection speeds to chose from and they will only install it by running a dedicated line to the computer instead of splitting it at the closest tv.

 

Good info from all. I'm impressed and like to know that afterdawn forum users are unlike any other forums i've seen which is mostly uninformed people with big opinions and a "this is the best cause that's what i like/use" attitude.

Another point is what do you want it for. I have Optimum Online cause on long island there is no other choice and they have an unspoken bandwith cap or they just kill your connection untill you stop doing whatever you're using the bandwidth for. DSL is faster if you pay for more. They have a tiered system of service. My friend in NYC pays now $80 a month but he says he gets insane download and upload speeds wich are consistent. Most DSL have a guaranteed upload/download in the contract.

I'm stuck with $50 a month and like everyone said it either runs quick or when it gets busy it's slow as heck. I hate Long Island

 

I've used SBCyahoo dsl for about a year and a half and I've been reletively happy with it. They're good about fixing your line if you've been having problems with outages. Also, they are getting ready to start up a marketing program where they double their basic tier speed from 1.5 Mb to 3 Mb in the next month or so. I'm really pumped about that. And the rep who told me about that said that existing user get the upgrade for just $1 more. He said that it was only going to be available in about 60% of their coverage area, so it won't apply to everyone, but it will be really awsome for those that it does apply to.

 

I've had DSL for over 2 years now and have nothing bad to say about it. I am paying for the entry level connection through my local ISP (256k) but the connection tests above 1.2M download and has for some time now. The connection has only been down once the entire time ive had it and it was for only a day or two. Not so sure about everywhere else but in my town dsl is FAR more reliable and faster than cable (and cheaper too). Everyone i know who has cable has had nothing but problems.

 

Thanks everyone for replying. It seems most people here prefer DSL over Cable. The only reason i am leaning towards Cable now is because it doesnt have a one year commitement whereas SBC DSL does. So basically the DSL can average around 1Mps? Comcast claims to be as fast as 3Mps, my question is when everyone in my neighborhood is using cable at the same time, how slow would it be, would it be slower than 1Mps?

 

it depends. im guessing that it has something to do with how many people are actually using it at the time, but im not sure. a friend of mine upgraded to cable from 56k and it was actually a lot slower. At times, it was so slow that web pages couldnt even connect properly. needless to say she didnt keep the cable line for too long. but that was with my local isp and i live in a small town so i dont really know how other isp's service is.

 

another quick question
where can i go to test how fast my internet speed is?
is there a site that tells u how fast ur internet connection is ?

 

for many online gaming things u can check how fast your connection is but i would go with cable is is really fast and i have had it forever plus it is easier(i believe) to hook up to game counsols (ie PS2 XBOX) but thats if youre into that stuff

 

for many online gaming things u can check how fast your connection is but i would go with cable is is really fast and i have had it forever plus it is easier(i believe) to hook up to game counsols (ie PS2 XBOX) but thats if youre into that stuff

 

you can test your bandwidth here: http://www.bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/
I've tested mine, and it says 3Mb, which is what mine is, so I would assume it is accurate.

My downloads usually top out at around 300Kb/s, but have gone up to 345. I have a friend with and 864Kb DSL, and his downloads usually don't go over 70-80Kb/s.
That 3Mb DSL sounds sweet though. We're moving to a damned subdivision with a bunch of rich pricks, so I don't know how many use comcast cable, but if its a lot, then I might want one of those...

 

After perusing the repkys to this thread i would like to throw in my two pennorth'(and hopefully recieve some feedback)it was after reading daemonzx6 post concerning his connection speeds which prompted me to write.
I have had NTL cable for over 2 years and i figured everything was fine and dandy (you can make your own minds up after reading my connection speeds whilst dealing with Torrents,it is a different tale when downloading of web)i ussualy d/l at approx 20-30 kbs although it is reguarly as low as 2-5 kbs and every blue moon it clocks in excess of 100 kbs, u/l can be anything from 2-12 kbs.It is a 750 kb connection from NTL and for d/l of web averages 80 kbs constantly.
If anyone can make any observations r:e this missive i would be much gratefull.
JON

After having just run the test fom url at post just above mine i can report it's results as>-communications--460.8,,,,,storage--56.2 kbs which it considers "not bad".

 

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