DSL or Cable? Better buy?

**Tknaff1** · 06-13-2002, 10:07 AM

I've recently been placed in charge of setting up our home office with broadband internet. I have two options, cable or DSL. I have had bad experiences with the Cable Internet provider in my area, in that they are horrible.

I have researched two DSL providers. One offers 756k download and 256k upload. Is this relatively good for being split into 8 workstations? I have no idea. I'm no IT guy.

I also found a provider that offers 1.5M DL and 350+K UL, but they charge a good deal of green for it.

Any suggestions?

**asheep_uk** · 06-13-2002, 11:13 AM

cable at 512k is perfect - £25 a month.

TE

**flipshark** · 06-13-2002, 11:26 AM

I have something called Sympatico High Speed, it provides a constant 10mbps which is lightning fast. $49 Canadian a month.

**NerdInside** · 06-13-2002, 11:31 AM

Go with DSL. Cable speed will go up and down as more users log on. DSL is a almost static speed. As more people turn towards cable, world-wide speed of cable will fall like a rock.

**chrisvo69er** · 06-13-2002, 12:11 PM

Asheep's got NTL cable

They rock! 512k cable man I am myself. £25 is a great price for it too.

As more people switch to cable then the cable company upgrades. They should have a gauranteed bandwidth speed that the service doesn't drop below. They both have pro's and con's. Just through them one by one and see what suits your business needs.

And please lets not turn this into a cable vs dsl war. I've been in one of those before and it wasn't pretty. It oftens turns out not to be what type of connection you have but what service provider you have. So it goes up and down depending.

**onlinegs.com** · 06-13-2002, 12:13 PM

I wish I had either of those options! Heck, ISBN would be better than what I am with!

**kallok** · 06-13-2002, 12:17 PM

Someone here is still a old skool 56k user...and thats Kallok!(I am finally upgrading to high speed cable the end of the month

)

**cyk** · 06-13-2002, 12:26 PM

It seems to be that DSL is more susceptible to longer outages. With, cable you will have slow downs but they are usually short and pass quickly. I personally have had no problems with cable but it depends on your location, of course. Cable companies will have to stay on their toes to keep bandwidth up , otherwise they will see a mass defection to DSL becuase it really is a lot faster.
Think about reliabilty issues and if you will have backup capability should your DSL go down or if you can get by without it if neccassary- if so, I would go DSL

**onlinegs.com** · 06-13-2002, 12:28 PM

Not to hijack your thread, but seeing you seem done with it. Anyone use Satelite Internet? I think that is bout my last option for high-speed internet, but I am worried about lag time. I have hear it is ~850ms which is too high for online games.

**kb1827** · 06-13-2002, 12:43 PM

How's the foliage around where you live? (for sat.)

**onlinegs.com** · 06-13-2002, 12:54 PM

I live in the plains on a farm, the only mild obstruction would be a build directly south of my house (which is where sats usally point in the northeren hemisphere), but I am pretty sure I would be able to clear it with ease!

**clifgriffin** · 06-13-2002, 12:57 PM

I've had Time Warner cable for over a year and a half without any problems or outages.

The speed is amazing... I get 2.3 Megabits average. That's 300k/s.

I've heard that DSL is down more. Also, this notion that DSL is not suscetible to being dragged down by more users is phony.

Cable may be vulnerable on the front end, but DSL is just as vulnerable when you get to the servers. More users you have, the slower it's going to be- for both. There's no way to be immune to this.

**onlinegs.com** · 06-13-2002, 01:09 PM

Yes, but Cable users share the same line so the more you have connected on the same line at the same time will drag down speed (just the same as having LAN shared internet access). Yes, the both are vulnerable on the server side, but cable is also vulnerable on the client side. Also, since you are on the same line cable is a little less secure.

But, unless you have high preforming DSL or low preforming cable, cable will probably be faster.

**LanSite** · 06-13-2002, 01:09 PM

Originally posted by Tknaff1
I've recently been placed in charge of setting up our home office with broadband internet. I have two options, cable or DSL. I have had bad experiences with the Cable Internet provider in my area, in that they are horrible.

I have researched two DSL providers. One offers 756k download and 256k upload. Is this relatively good for being split into 8 workstations? I have no idea. I'm no IT guy.

I also found a provider that offers 1.5M DL and 350+K UL, but they charge a good deal of green for it.

Any suggestions?

Seems you're answering (most) of your own question Tknaff ... If you've had bad experience with cable before, why would you pay to have more bad experiences?

I don't know your location but you might be interested in checking http://www.dslreports.com - good info there!

Good luck

**AGENT 02** · 06-13-2002, 01:09 PM

Different solutions offer better results depending on your location. When looking at DSL, make sure to ask how far you are from the station. You could get much faster than they say - or much, much slower if you happen to be on the fringes.

In my area (Boston), cable is about the same speed as my DSL, but has much more downtime. Then again, friends of mine on DSL have had issues too, but I happen to be close to a station - and I'm sure it helps.

DSL is also natively much more secure than cable. Check to see if your DSL company also offers higher speed packages. For instnce, my basic plan gets me 700+ down and like 256 up, but I can get up to 7.1 BM/sec down id I had money to toss away...

**kb1827** · 06-13-2002, 01:11 PM

DSL does not decrease in speeds as users log in, with the given that they are all on different sites. If all dsl users were at one site, it WOULD go slow...but thats not the isp's issue.

Cable is shared...as more users log in, speeds decrease, regardless of site being visited...of course, the decrease is all subject to the quality of the lines that your isp has laid down.

**clifgriffin** · 06-13-2002, 02:28 PM

Originally posted by kb1827
DSL does not decrease in speeds as users log in, with the given that they are all on different sites. If all dsl users were at one site, it WOULD go slow...but thats not the isp's issue.

Cable is shared...as more users log in, speeds decrease, regardless of site being visited...of course, the decrease is all subject to the quality of the lines that your isp has laid down.

They are getting the bandwith somewhere...the more users the DSL service has, the less bandwith to go around.

Or am I mistaken?

Cable can be extremley fast depending on your city and your ISP.

DSL can theoretically be faster, but there are more limitations. Such as how far you are from the nearest telephone switching station. Even if you are within the required distance, speeds and service can be flaky depending on your distance.

I've never seen it worth it to go for it.

**kb1827** · 06-13-2002, 02:36 PM

Its set up differently...unlike cable which splits the bandwidth (cable tv, all one signal being split...), dsl uses a seperate channel per user (like a phone call).

**TallGuyLittleCar** · 06-13-2002, 02:40 PM

Originally posted by onlinegs.com
Not to hijack your thread, but seeing you seem done with it. Anyone use Satelite Internet? I think that is bout my last option for high-speed internet, but I am worried about lag time. I have hear it is ~850ms which is too high for online games.

yes lag is bad, time for the signal to make it to the sattelite and back. Plus thick clouds will knock out the signal as well

.

there are a few other odd options. ISDN is avialable anywhere.
You can also try shotgunning either an isdn or dial up.

Shotgunning uses two or more connections at the same time to increase speed. its expensive and not really worth it in my opinion.

Shotgunning will cost more than double the single isdn or dial up cost not to mention special hardware.

**asheep_uk** · 06-13-2002, 02:59 PM

Originally posted by chrisvo69er
Asheep's got NTL cable They rock! 512k cable man I am myself. £25 is a great price for it too.

So so close...

Its acutaly blueyonder (Telewest) - but I am 100 metres away from an NTL area, so you are kind right.

TE

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