Is speed the only advantage cable connection to internet has over DSL?
It used to be, that with DSL you had to add filters to each phone in your home. I'm not sure if that is still required.
The cable (wire to wire) connection is important. Most older homes have better connectivity in coax rather than telco, as the coax was installed more recently.
I have had both. One thing to consider is the news server that they bundle with your connection. The speed of my DSL was reasonable but the news server was S L O W.
Advertised speed for the connection is seldom going to be realized in real life use anyway. You run at the speed of the slowest link in the chain.
(ECN can be pretty slow sometimes)
From a reliability standpoint I think the Telco wins based on my experience but that is a local situation. Then there is cost. The cable connection is about $10 cheaper here and more like $20 cheaper if you already have TV cable.
Cable often has higher peak download speeds than DSL. Most of the people I know in my area who have cable have an advertised downstream of 3.0 megabits/second. A typical/average DSL service (like my Verizon DSL @ $30/mo) might be 1.5 Mb/S downstream, with an option to double that at extra cost, or cut it in half for half-price (768K for $15 per month). But, cable speeds can vary, as all your neighbors are putting their data on the same coax as you are. I have one friend who complains his cable connection is great all day until the kids come home from school, at which time he says it seems like he's on dial-up (I'm guessing he is exaggerating a little bit, nothing could be as horrible as dial-up!). I don't notice any significant variations in speed with DSL. I'm sure it's possible for things to get bottle-necked at the telco central office, but I haven't notice it, and at least there is a straight pipe from my house to the CO. I know some people have security concerns with cable and the sharing of the line, but have never heard of any actual problems with this. For the users I know, DSL has faster upstream speeds than cable - but the four people I know who use Verizon DSL all happen to be within one mile of their central office/hut. I have 448 Kb/S upstream speed. As I recall, typical upstream speeds for cable are 300 - 400 Kb/S.
So, I'd say its a wash. For downloading VERY big files, like movies, cable internet's peak throughput advantage over DSL might outweigh its occasional sluggishness. But for internet gaming (playing Battlefield 2 online rocks!) I'd take DSL for its consistency and better upstream (for gaming upstream is just as important as downstream).
[This message has been edited by electech (edited 10-25-2005).]
Cable has been down for 2 days. I am on dial up.
Cable can have an advantage in speed, but you are limited to the ISP services provided by your cable company.
DSL may be slower, but you have more choices when it comes to ISP's.
With cable, and some DSL ISPs, you are bound by some very restrictive Terms Of Service, which may prevent you from running any type of server, even personal servers.
Depending on the service you get, you may also be stuck with a dynamic IP address, which changes periodicly. I have seen some ISP's that change it randomly, which plays havoc with some types of interactive sessions.
The other thing to consider is tech support. We use a independant ISP, which partners with telco for the DSL circuit. They have very competent support staff, and very short hold times, as opposed to some ISP's with their long hold times, and script-monkeys, some of which are outsourced overseas, with the associated language problems, etc.
I've purchased "high speed" cable internet connection. The cable company offers MAX. 6mb download speed. Of course many things can contribute to a much lower speed. ie. operating system, etc. My question is: How do I know what MY internet download speed is? What can I do to find that out? My operating system is Windows ME. RAM = 255mb.
DSLREPORTS.COM will test your speed but I am not sure how accurate it is.
I am only testing at 750kbs down/350kbs up with my Comcast cable modem.
Don't expect to ever see the advertised rate
It used to be, that with DSL you had to add filters to each phone in your home. I'm not sure if that is still required.
A filter is needed to keep the DSL signal from your phones. The individual filters hanging off every jack is a rather messy solution though.
The better approach is to install one filter at the network interface (or first jack), and then wire separately to voice and DSL jacks throughout the house.
When I got DSL they put in a new demark on the house with the filters in it.
Just from my experience,...
When I had dsl (for about 2 yrs.), when it worked, it was great. Only on a few occasions, I had problems. A large truck came down our little street once, and clipped the overhead wire. It took a few days to get everything back to normal. Another time the guys collecting the garbage somehow nicked the wire coming down the pole (before it went underground to my house), and another time it just quit. That time they replaced the whole line from my drop to the corner of the block. After that, my speeds were never that good. These problems led me to believe that the dsl lines seemed more delicate and prone to problems than cable. I've now had cable for about 2 yrs., and nothing significant has happened.
[This message has been edited by XtheEdgeX (edited 01-07-2006).]
My eyes can be bad sometimes, but I don't think anyone mentioned the distance issue with DSL. While cable can theoretically go wherever there is coax, DSL has distance limitations based on degredation of the digital signal and load coils. Also, I think this has been alluded to, but remember that for everyone that connects to a cable segment they eat into the bandwidth/throughput available for everyone else on that segment (shared bus technology). In other words, it might be blinding fast with no one else in the neighborhood, but wait until 12 neighbors get it in their homes...
Since some of the cable (outside on the street) is made of copper, it doesn't really matter, what kind of end-hardware you use.
ADSL max downstream is 8 to 10 Mbit/sec for shorter loops. 768K to 3.0 Mbit downstream service seems very typical, but is not always a limitation of the technology. Unlike with cable internet, your bandwidth from your home to the central office will never change.
ADSL2+ does ~25 Mbits/sec at up to 3,000 feet, ~20 Mbits/sec up to 5,000 feet, ~10 Mbits/sec at 8,000 feet, ~2.5 Mbits/sec at 14,000 feet.
VDSL is just under 100 Mbits/sec at 1000 feet, 40 Mbits/sec at 2,000 feet, 20 Mbits/sec at 4,000, and degrades sharply from there. VDSL2 is over 200 Mbits/sec when you live across the street from the CO, blah, blah, blah.
But none of that matters. In the end, what matters is how much you are willing to pay, what speeds your local provider is offering, are they throttling your throughput, how far you are from the CO (in the case of xDSL), how many local users are on the line (in the case of cable), and what is the capacity of the backbone feeding your ISP.
Broadbandreports.com has tons of information, forums, etc on high speed internet, and links to speed test sites as well.