View Full Version : Cable Internet vs ADSL


TheDon
12-29-02, 01:00 AM
I'm going to be getting broadband soon, but im not sure which of the two (ADSL and Cable) to get.

Can anyone help me out by telling me of you experiences with speeds, downloads, dropouts, problems, etc?

Thanks

wesmorris
12-29-02, 01:04 AM
Cable is generally 10 bucks cheaper and has unlimited dl bandwidth, where generally adsl is limited to 768Kbps dl and 128Kbps up. Cable, sometimes limited to X dl (prolly similar to adsl) but usually the node you're in is the limiting factor, as long as everyone on your node isn't dling at the same time, you get blazing speed as long as the route doesn't suck or the server you dl from isn't slow (which happens a lot). I've seen my dl get up to 300 KB/s. You might want to ask about the speed limitations before commiting.

grazzhoppa
12-29-02, 03:29 AM
Depends where you live. I'm in (crowded) New Jersey and getting cable where I live would be foolish because of how many people would be sharing that same line, or node as wesmorris said. I have DSL 512kb/s or k/s (I don't know the difference) and a 128 upload. If you do the math 512 kilobits is equal to about 65 kilobytes per second (downloads one megabyte every 15 seconds). Which is what it stabalizes at. It usually starts at 150 kilobytes/s and gradually levels off at 65.

Cable is faster than what I have but you are sharing the main line with other people on your grid so it can become slower than mine too. If you live in a urban area I'd say go for the DSL. We pay above $30 but below $50 ;) but there're plans for speeds for somewhere around 700kb/s, 1 megabit/s, 1.5 megabits/s, and 3 megabits/s. They get up over $100 a month. With the increase in download speed, the upload increases too, but I forget what the speeds are.

The only problem I have had with my DSL is only because of the company (Sprint). It was out for about a night and I had talk to a techie for about an hour until he gave me some IP address of a DNS server (it something to do with the addresses of websites). Otherwise it's always on, never any problems.

Avatar
12-29-02, 09:02 AM
yeah- I also have 2 DNS server IP's of my ISP written down