HeatherD

Don't be too scared. While some people have trouble, it's usually due to the ISP or DSL provider they have. And yes there can be technical problems in the house or at the demarc at your house.

My ISP took care of things for me, working with SBC (the DSL provider) and I had no problem with a self-install. I got my hardware setup on a Monday, a few filters to install, a new wall plate and one cable. The scheduled turn-up date was on a Friday. The DSL provider had things turned up two days early and my ISP had the circuit up later that day. I'm on 128k/1.5M static IP circuit and it's always work at the rated speed.

A few people in the area that did have cable switched because the @home provider went out of business. The biggest complaints were network congestion caused by a shared network, frequent outages and really poor support and service. There were lots of complaints about cable having speed caps too. Cable is no longer available in my area and I doubt anyone misses it.

A good place to compare providers in your area, as well as just about anything else about broadband internet is dslreports.com

Shivershot

As far as Denver goes, ATT Broadband (converting to Comcast now) is the cable Internet provider and there are a few for DSL with Qwest the highest on the list (based only on subscribers, not quality)... $ for $ cable here is the way to go, my download tests max out around 1.7 meg/sec vs. 512 k/sec for DSL. Factored into the equation is the necessity to have an active phone line and since my household all has cell-phones, it's an extra cost.

I'm a big online gamer and a bit of a bandwidth hog for other things as well, so cable was the obvious choice. Ping times (the time it takes a data packet to get from your computer to its destination and vice versa) are as big of a consideration as the size of the pipe for gaming, and once again, cable delivers the best service here too. Lag is a killer, so the lower the ping-time the better...

I don't think that satellite and fixed-point wireless are even able to deliver killer low pings given physics restrictions, but I'd take them over dial-up. Download speeds can actually be pretty good as far as I've heard.

As has been stated before, the quality of your ISP, be it DSL, cable, or other will help or hurt you the most, so it's a very difficult process to find out just how well your particular situation is going to pan out...

Hope this helps some

Jimmy Higgins

I've read about the satelite woes. Pretty much companies like Hughes getting sued by anyone who used the service. Directv has Directway and I was checking them out, but the amount of money is nuts. Of course, you are paying for the satelite in orbit. Much more expensive then that server hooked to the DSL or Cable line. But the money down or the monthly charge is nuts. And while in theory, it should be fast, as said previously, physics is in the way. And what worries me is how much bandwidth that satelite can take! You aren't promised any sort of minimum with satelite, using a "fair-use" clause, so that all people get screwed equally. It sounds really cool, but in reality, it is nothing other than a pain. And that's if you have a two-way connection. There was another thing where you downloaded from Satelite, but uploaded through the phone line. WTF???

I'd love to get a cable modem, but there is no way in hell I'm doing any business with Time Warner. When I had their cable, briefly in late 1999, they screwed up 3 times, one on billing, and twice on different occasions with installation. SBC is the local DSL provider, so I'd have to go through them. I'll keep that on the radar when I move.

Kinross

Disclaimer: I'm an embedded engineer for a company that makes equipment that tests POTS, DSL, and Cable and there is a lot of misinformation in this thread.

For the casual user there is no difference in internet browsing between DSL and Cable.

Both systems through put and latency depend on the quality of the line and the number users.

Cable typically provides 1500/128 kbps some providers cap the downstream lower and some can up the up stream 384 kbps.

DSL can offer 1500/1500 down to 384/128 and anything in between depending on the flavor of DSL and your distance from the office.

With cable the cable company owns the lines and is the ISP, they are not required to share their lines with anyone.

With DSL the Telco owns the lines but is required by law to share the lines with competing ISPs. Usually the Telco and ISPs do not play nice together so if your ISP is not the Telco you could see long turn around times for service calls. This also is why sometimes there is a long wait between ording service and receiving service.

Both systems are are equally cross platform. You usually get a cable or DSL modem wich has an ethernet connector to connect to your computer. DSL providers sometimes use PPPoE but some cable companies are using this as well. All operating systems support PPPoE.

DSL requires requires filters and spliters for the lines. Cable also requires filters and spliters as well.

From personal experience I have had both.

I originally had DSL through a CLEC. The service was great until the CLEC went bankrupt. Servce deteriorated and no one was answering the phones so I could cancel service while my credit card was being charged.

I then switched to cable internet but didn't have cable TV. This completly confused them and they thought I was stealing cable TV and the serviceman would pull my cable. I would then be out a week without internet until the serviceman came to reconnect me. this happened six times.

I then moved to a more tech savy area where the community runs its own ISP and havn't had a problem yet with 1500/1500 DSL service.

AquaVita

I assume you are directing this at me. Please point out any misinformation given.

Wrong.

Have you ever tried to set up DSL on a Mac?

Sometimes? Unless you have a truly static IP(which you can only get with a business class service level, typically) then you will be using PPPoE or a close equivalent.

What cable companies...and why?

lol...you ARE an engineer! Well guess what....I'm tech support so I can tell you what actually works in the field and what does not.

Sure, it's supported on most OS's. That does not mean it works reliably. For example, someone with win2k running winpoet is going to run into problems the majority of the time. ANY mac OS is going to run into problems using PPPoE. The one and only slight exception is osX which has built in PPPoE, so none is required outside of that. But it still makes for quite a headace.

The most reliable DSL connection in my opinion, is run on windows XP, it also has it's own PPPoE connection built in that works very nicely.



Filters will distort a cable modem and keep it from syncing. It cannot talk back to a provider this way.

Who told you that cable modem service requires filters?



That is obviously a case of an incompetent group of people handling your issue.

The problem with DSL is that the technology itself is unstable and has many problems that even a crack team needs a lot of time to solve.

You may be an engineer or whatever, but it's me who has to fix the crap that engineers put to the public. I know what works, and what does not.

viscousmemories

When I lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the cable connection I had blew the DSL out of the water. In Chicago, my DSL connection blew the cable out of the water. As a broadband addict I had both in case one went down. On top of everything others have said, I add that it has a lot to do with where you are.

AquaVita

Very true...another reason why I am hesitant to recommend DSL to people, as they have to sign the year agreement, and thusly, if the service sucks, or is not what they expect, they are stuck paying for it for a year. And there is no way to tell what the performance will be untiill after the line is provisioned, and after you've signed the contract.

DarkBronzePlant

I'm not sure what all of the DSL-bashing is around here, but I've had DSL for four years, at three different residences, and have had only a single problem. That was due to a bum piece of hardware (a bad DSL modem), which is something that could happen to a cable-modem user, dial-up iser, satellite user, T-1 user, etc.

Come over to my house, and I'll show you how cross-platform DSL is. I started using DSL when I had a Mac OS9 and Windows 98 machine in my house. No problems whatsoever setting those up. Then I dumped Win 98 for Linux. Still no problem configuring that machine for DSL (and it's Linux, for goddsake! ) Then I switched to Mac OSX. Absolutely no problem there. Finally, I got a Sharp Zaurus PDA, and for shits & giggles tried networkin that over my DSL line. Again, no problem.

I also have multiple phone lines over the house, and a security system. Um, what were the problems I was supposed to be having there? Because I've had none. Yeah, Qwest gave me filters to install on my phone extensions, and that took all of thirty seconds to do. No problems whatsoever with my ADT security system.

So what do I get? For one, guraranteed speeds. For two, static IP addresses (which--correct me if I am wrong--cannot be had with cable modem) Which means that if I choose to, I can access my computers from remote locations, run servers from home, etc. Of course, if you don't want to or are concerned about security, you don't have to. After showing you how easy it is for me to have four computers accessing the Internet simultaneously from my house with DSL, we can go over to my friend's house, where he is using a cable modem, and show you what a pain in the ass it is for him to get more than one computer on the Internet.

Kinross

No it wasn't directed just to you.


I have DSL with PPPoE on a Mac OSX ,OS9, Linux, BSD, Win98/NT/2000/XP

All of them want support for it for account billing. Cable is eventually going to cap total badwidth and then charge you for anything over that. e.i. you can download 3Gb / month anything else is extra.

Unless you are using PPPoE all systems that that have TCP/IP support should be fine.

There are apps for all systems to enable PPPoE, the only problem is that microsofts implementation does not follow the standard. I have multiple boxes that can connect to a PPPoE server the only exception is the WinXP box because it does it the Microsoft way. Perhaps your equipment is setup to do it the Microsoft way and not following the standard.

You need filters for cable if you have cable internet and digital cable. The upstream data frequency harmonics can play havoic with some digital cable boxes.

AquaVita

I'm not bashing it because I hate it, I'm bashing it because I deal with internet connections every day here at work, and I'm telling you what real world experience has told me regarding it.

When DSL works, it's awesome. When it doesn't work, it's a nightmare. That's the bottom line.

Well first of all, multiple phones lines does not affect DSL. Only devices on the same line as the DSL will affect it.

And the security system? I never said it would always cause it to fail...but since many security systems are wired into the phones(to call the police in case of a break in etc) cause problems because they are not wired correctly. I never said it was always a problem, but rather, when it is a problem, it becomes a real pain.

Great! I'm always glad to hear someone have an easy transition to get away from narrowband, reagardless of platform. But you should consider yourself very lucky to have had no problems!

Sounds like he's missing a step somewhere. It is not that difficult to network a cable internet connection.