Cable VS DSL?

robbeing · Post by **robbeing** » Mon Mar 25, 2002 1:17 am

I was at a friends house who had a cable modem, and was very impressed by the up and down speeds So, I was about to switch from DSL to cable,when I asked around for some "feed back" on the difference etc. Well, many that answered said that initially, they were thrilled with their cable, but on down the line (say six months or so) their speeds began to get "sluggish" because of shared bandwidth. My DSL connection is running at an average of 1300kbps down, and 300kbps up, when my ISP's advertised speeds are 1500kbps down, and 360kbps up.I am getting good results with the DSL, but, I was seeing much better speeds with cable! I am a bit leary of the "shared bandwidth" should I be? I was under the assumption, that ISP'S were addressing that problem by changing directions on "overloaded" lines to alleviate this problem. Has anyone had a problem with too many users, while online? or, do your speeds generally "keep up?"

TeenInternetAddict · Post by **TeenInternetAddict** » Mon Mar 25, 2002 1:45 am

I never had a problem with the node I'm on being overloaded, it's probably because the neighbors can't afford computers or can't afford Cox HSI. I have Cox HSI if you want to know, and I had the service for 2 years now when it was Cox Roadrunner, and no slowdown problems to report except for the network is getting slow now, but the speeds of 3000/256 has been keeping up and is getting more faster and faster. It depends on the area you are in, and how many people has the service using it at the same time as you are. But if your cable company is really, really good, they will split up nodes usually, add more channels if the network gets overloaded, or just capped their users at 2000/384 for example so the users get what they are paying for. Why not order the cable modem service and give it a try for a month? Don't cancel your DSL yet, try the service for one month[cable companies do have 30 day money back guarantees], if it doesn't meet your expectations, or you have problems, just cancel the service and keep using your DSL.

Teen

BaLa · Post by **BaLa** » Mon Mar 25, 2002 2:01 am

I will saay this some cable modems are awesome some suck..it really depends I don't think you can generalize and say Cable Modems are better and or Vice Versa...

like Teen said I would try it out and compare but service can get worse fairly easy; but that it's prolly not much different with DSL

<edit> I believe DSL is a better technology

glc1 · Post by **glc1** » Mon Mar 25, 2002 2:26 am

Unfortunately, it all depends on your area, so it's hard to say. Cable has the potential to yield greater performance for the same price as or less than DSL (as you experienced at your friend's house), however, it's all up to the ISP and their business practices. If cable ISPs maintain their network and manage the bandwidth accordingly, there shouldn't be a problem. Note that DSL also can suffer from overbooking. It's not just cable. At one point or another all internet connections are shared. I suggest doing some research at dslreports.com. There you can get a general idea of how good cable internet access really is in your area.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Mon Mar 25, 2002 9:49 am

Depends on many factors, which are different for everyone. You'll get some people who insist on telling the world that one is better than the other....and those people are incapable of realizing the differences out there which affect all users. What works best for one person isn't guaranteed to be the best option for another person.

Such differences as geography...location. DSL you have the distance factor from your house to the Central Office (CO). The farther away, the slower you go. This generally doesn't affect ping, just throughput. And it's your own pipe to the CO, it's not shared from your house....it's all yours.

Cable doesn't have distance factors, but it has the shared users per node thing going on. This again leads back to location, and geography. Some users in dense areas, where all their neighbors have cable internet, and quite a number are running web/ftp/game servers, eating up bandwidth, well, yes, those people feel the hit from late afternoon into the evening. Yet other users, in sparse areas with little or no users....they don't notice a thing.

Other factors....there's one I call luck of the draw...how good are your lines from either the ISP or CO, to your house. This affects both cable and DSL. Some people are lucky, and have good lines, others, there can be some crummy connection somewhere that will always plague them. I've seen users of the same ISP, slightly different areas...one has a great connection, the other has a miserable one....and I'm sure it's a bum connection for the unlucky one.

And which ISP you choose. With cable, you mostly have no choice, but with DSL....you usually do. I have DSL with an ISP I've been dealing with for a long time, and it blows the doors off of the local phone companies DSL.

rickster · Post by **rickster** » Mon Mar 25, 2002 10:09 am

I am swithching from cable to DSL tommorrow. I have seen my dl/ul speeds degrade to 32k down /60 up as the results of bandwidth sharing. My suggestion would be to look around your position in your community. Are there any housing developments planned between you and the node? How fast is cable service expanding in your area? Two subdivisions on both sides of me have rendered my cable service unusable in the evenings.

Rickster

zxc47 · Post by **zxc47** » Mon Mar 25, 2002 9:11 pm

It all up to your ISP . this is what roadrunner tell us
Road Runner can operate up to a total of 27 Mb/s on a given network, with no noticeable impact with multiple users. Should the Road Runner business grow to the extent that there are more customers requesting service than the allocated bandwidth can accommodate, Time Warner Cable will open another channel for the service. so far so good. I get 2Mb/s down 384 up

robbeing · Post by **robbeing** » Mon Mar 25, 2002 9:37 pm

Yes, I've seen those speeds & better!(cable) I am with Earthlink, and the great speeds I refer to, have been on Earthlinks cable service. But, I begin to wonder about the "down the road" scenario, when (I live in Greenwich Village, by NYU) Time Warner, or Road Runner gets a "bizzillion" subscribers! I mean, I live in NYC for cryin out loud. It's bound to happen. I hate to set myself up for a big disapointment! At DSL Reports, in a forum there, I've got many replys from those who report a "great" start, and then later on, regrets. But, I'm still tempted, and hold the belief (probably foolishly) that if the demand is that great, they will eventually provide adequate service enough for better average speeds. I can't find ANYONE who can tell me how many cable subscribers there are in my "neck of the woods" How does one go about finding THAT out? That hasEverything to do with it.

SG Broadband Community

Cable VS DSL?

Cable VS DSL?

Cable vs DSL

I have seen those speeds!