IBTG81 Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 My roommate and I have about had it with our cable modem. We have Patriot Media (small POS cable company) and this has been the first time we could connect to the internet in about 24 hours. I called them and got the run around. We were thinking of switching to Earthlink DSL. Anyone have any experiences? Is DSL much slower than Cable? Also, can you get DSL if you subscribe to DirecTV? If so, what are the costs? Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spiderweb Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 My roommate and I have about had it with our cable modem. We have Patriot Media (small POS cable company) and this has been the first time we could connect to the internet in about 24 hours. I called them and got the run around. We were thinking of switching to Earthlink DSL. Anyone have any experiences? Is DSL much slower than Cable? Also, can you get DSL if you subscribe to DirecTV? If so, what are the costs? Thanks! 226945[/snapback] Since I was too cheap to ever try the cable route, I'm not a good judge regarding speed differences between cable & DSL. My first few weeks with Verizon DSL were a bit touchy in that it would disconnect itself 1, 2 or 3 times a day and sometimes it took me up to about 30 minutes to reconnect. Verizon tested my lines and never found anything abnormal but they did say they "tweeked" (??) a few things back at "central". Then finally one of their techs suggested a change on my router settings and bingo, rock solid service service since. $29.95/mo plus a couple bucks in taxes, fees. [Changed from "connect on demand" to "keep alive" (linksys)] Two of my neighbors recently dumped TW (RoadRunner) for Verizon DSL stating there were semi-frequent outages and they they now feel the speed is normally better with DSL since they're online during peak hours (when every kid in America is online or so it seems). and we're rated for a max of 768 (or thereabouts). We don't have the 1.5 MB service available (due to our circuit type - FEZ help out here a bit !!!). Use Firefox, add the tweeks suggested by SDS, and you'll be in business. Cable may be superior relative to speed overall, but DSL has been A-OK for me. I wonder how the power line "test" has done in Cincinnati. If they could get that running........competition, a good thing for consumers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfladave Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 I have cable internet access through Comcast and I have no complaints. I am never down, and my speed is always excellent. I thought my service was maxed out at 3MB but my neighbor told me we have 4MBs. I think that both cable and DSL service reliability will vary depending on your location. I have no problems with my cable, but other people I know using Comcast in south Florida have some speed issues, but not connection issues. With DSL I think that you have to worry about how close you are to a local connection of some kind. I am by no means an expert in these matters. My decision on what to use came down to who could provide me with broadband access while giving me the best price while bundling with other services such as cable TV. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigAL Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 My roommate and I have about had it with our cable modem. We have Patriot Media (small POS cable company) and this has been the first time we could connect to the internet in about 24 hours. I called them and got the run around. We were thinking of switching to Earthlink DSL. Anyone have any experiences? Is DSL much slower than Cable? Also, can you get DSL if you subscribe to DirecTV? If so, what are the costs? Thanks! 226945[/snapback] If you're a gamer, and your connection speed is important to you, I wouldn't switch to DSL. I used to have it, but my ping to online games was always in the 100 - 120 range. I then upgraded to the more expesive faster connection DSL, and that did nothing for my ping. I switched to cable, and that dropped my ping into the 60 - 80 range. I haven't looked back since. I've rearely had a problem. I was worried about bandwidth with cable, but no problems in over 3 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kegtapr Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 My roommate and I have about had it with our cable modem. We have Patriot Media (small POS cable company) and this has been the first time we could connect to the internet in about 24 hours. I called them and got the run around. We were thinking of switching to Earthlink DSL. Anyone have any experiences? Is DSL much slower than Cable? Also, can you get DSL if you subscribe to DirecTV? If so, what are the costs? Thanks! 226945[/snapback] I've had both. Cable wins for me. Never had any downtime and I max out at 3.74 mbps. Not a whole lot of difference between the two if you have two reliable providers. DSL would crap out on me at least once a week. Frontier (the DSL provider) sucks my nuts. Go with who provides better service and you'll be happy. Ask for opinions from the locals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cåblelady Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 I've had both. Cable wins for me. 226972[/snapback] I love you, tapr. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kegtapr Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 I love you, tapr. 226974[/snapback] You're still a rip off Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crackur Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 I got Verizon DSL never stop working for me ...........always runs good and for the people who don't know how to fix it when it "crapped" out. Maybe they shouldn't have internet.......they tell you when you get it to unplug it if it doesnt work but mine is fine........matter of fact, mine got faster last night..... so I guess its whoever you ask.........and I live back in the boonies!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tux of Borg Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 Cable speeds (usually 3mb download, 256k upload) are faster than DSL. The downside is you are using shared bandwidth with your neighbors. So if your neighbor next door is running a kiddie porn server, your speeds will vary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fezmid Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 We don't have the 1.5 MB service available (due to our circuit type - FEZ help out here a bit !!!) I've had both cable and DSL and (aside from Comcast's crappy customer service), both have worked very well. Cable gives you higher theoretical maximum speeds. In reality, you'll rarely be able to get that highanyway unless you're downloading large CD/DVD images from multiple locations. The reason is that the servers you're hitting have a maximum upload speed of their own. If they can upload a maximum of 50 megabytes/second, and you can download at 1 megabyte/second, what happens when when 100 people hit the site? You're not getting your full 1MB/s anymore. Also, cable is a shared segment. That means if all of your neighbors jump online at the same time as you, your throughput will be MUCH lower than if you're on by yourself. With DSL, you have your own direct circuit to the CO, so even if everyone in the neighborhood is using the internet at the same time, you won't notice. I never had problems playing online games with DSL; BigAl was mostly right -- you need low network LATENCY for games; speed really isn't an issue at all. Based on his ping times, I'd say there were probably other issues -- either his stuff wasn't configured right, the DSL provider wasn't configured properly, he lived on the fringe of the CO, the CO had old hardware that needed replacing, etc. (CO = central office, the location where you DSL connection is setup; you need to be within X miles of a CO to get service. That's why a lot of people can't get DSL). One thing I will say is that your DSL service provider is MUCH more important than anything else. In Minnesota, I highly recommend Visi.com. You get your physical DSL line from Qwest, but you tell them that you want Visi as your ISP. Frequent drops, slow speeds, etc, are generally a result of a crappy ISP. I had DirecTV and DSL at the same time; with DSL, you'll need to install line filters at every phone (either that or the phone company can install a filter where the phone line comes in; I lived in an apartment, so that wasn't an option). Basically, I'd go with whatever is cheaper; I have cable now, and do notice the speed difference when downloading the latest release of OpenBSD or something like that, but 99% of the time you won't notice. It's up to you to decide if paying $20-$30/month more is worth the occasional speed increase when downloading. Hope that helps. EDIT: This was like a FFS post, except for internet access instead of football! CW Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tux of Borg Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 I then upgraded to the more expesive faster connection DSL, and that did nothing for my ping. I switched to cable, and that dropped my ping into the 60 - 80 range. I haven't looked back since. I've rearely had a problem. I was worried about bandwidth with cable, but no problems in over 3 years. 226969[/snapback] It depends on what you're pinging. A lot of ISP's use UBR's and filter out ICMP packets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rico Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 I guess everything's relative to your provider & what you use the broadband for. Me, I'm a heavy downloader on USENET. Started with cable using @home & loved it, unlimited access. Comcrap took over and after about a year or so, they limited newsgroup downloads from their server to 1 gig a month. :I starred in Brokeback Mountain: I got around it for awhile by using Giganews, a premium newserver (paying out the a$$). Then, they started suspending heavy bandwidth users without giving them any guidelines as to how much was too much. :I starred in Brokeback Mountain: :I starred in Brokeback Mountain: So I switched to Verizon DSL early last year & never looked back. I recently upgraded my account (about $10 more for increased speed) and my download speed is faster than it was with Comcrap. Now, I just load a big queue of DVDs & lossless music in my newsreader (Xnews), download about 15 gig a day to my 200gig HD, and burn discs 1-2x a week. I'm also able to squeeze in 2 easytree Bit Torrents running simultaneously that get completed a lot faster than before because Comcrap used to throttle the upload speeds. :I starred in Brokeback Mountain: :I starred in Brokeback Mountain: :I starred in Brokeback Mountain: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
col_forbin Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 I'm also able to squeeze in 2 easytree Bit Torrents running simultaneously.... 227014[/snapback] Thank God for easytree!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rico Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 Thank God for easytree!!! 227015[/snapback] Yep. Last week, I snatched Pink Floyd - The Wall (pro-shot from London 1980, 2 DVDs), The Who (pro-shot, Essen 81) and Led Zep (pro-shot, Earls Court 75, 2 DVDs). Right now, I'm wrapping up Van (pro-shot, Dusseldorf 98) & I've got my eye on that Kiss Detroit 76! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just Jack Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 I've never used DSL, but here's a couple interesting articles about what we got coming to Syracuse: Verizon to string high-speed fiber lines to homes Internet over power lines: New box to make Internet service in Solvay even faster Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GG Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 Then, they started suspending heavy bandwidth users without giving them any guidelines as to how much was too much. :I starred in Brokeback Mountain: :I starred in Brokeback Mountain: 227014[/snapback] Gee, I wonder if they're doing it because they think that heavy bandwidth users are illegally downloading copyrighted works? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VABills Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 Fios. I use DSL, much more secur and safer than Cable. Always on, never have a problem. Not as fast as cable, but fast enough and much better support. Plus the local cable company goes out if they even call for rain. They are string FIOS in the area and I will switch once they are complete. All the security of DSL (since it is) and faster than anything else out there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stuckincincy Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 Gee, I wonder if they're doing it because they think that heavy bandwidth users are illegally downloading copyrighted works? 227063[/snapback] And yet, downloaders would regard going into a record shop, dropping a CD into their pocket, and walking out as stealing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rico Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 Gee, I wonder if they're doing it because they think that heavy bandwidth users are illegally downloading copyrighted works? 227063[/snapback] No, they really don't give a damn about that. It's like Fez said, cable is a shared segment, and heavy downloaders can affect other people's bandwidth performance. Plus, the heavy downloaders end up costing them a lot more $$$. They'd much prefer people who just like to surf the Internet faster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GG Posted February 3, 2005 Share Posted February 3, 2005 No, they really don't give a damn about that. It's like Fez said, cable is a shared segment, and heavy downloaders can affect other people's bandwidth performance. Plus, the heavy downloaders end up costing them a lot more $$$. They'd much prefer people who just like to surf the Internet faster. 227102[/snapback] Maybe you're right. Cable companies don't give a damn about people illegally downloading videos over their pipes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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