Cable Vs DSL..

[Neutron]

My new house is wired for Cable and DSL. Right now I use Cable and I like it a lot.

Next week, when I move to Tennessee I elected to go with Bellsouth DSL, mostly because they offered such an awesome deal. Bellsouth says I won't even see a difference in the quality of the product, and it should work just as well.

Does anyone have any experience with both of these? And does Bellsouth do a good job or backing their product?

Tron

 

[MissBeeHaven]

I have cable connection and I love it, I was going to get DSL, but cable was available for set-up quicker. I have heard that they are identical, I know cable does come with firewall and spam control, but I'm sure DSL does as well. I probably wasn't any help, but I tried.

 

[drew70]

When I had Verizon DSL, they said that I had roughly 128K upstream and about 3 times that downstream. Cable modem's vary a bit more. If you're on a digital fiber-optic cable system, they can offer you more bandwidth, close to T1 speed, which is 1544K or 1.544 Mbps.

However, here's the kicker. You might have T1 bandwidth between your home and your cable company, but the pipe between the cable company and the ISP is shared by all cable modem customers. Same with DSL. So your throughput might not be all that great even though your speed is high. It all depends on how much bandwidth exists between the cable/dsl office and the ISP and how many customers are being crammed on it.

 

[Cav88]

Wow, alot of big words I don't understand from some of you guys =P

I can tell I have cable that I get along with the cable tv and it works great. Websites pop up fast, DLs are fast and online games are smooth.

DSL I haven't tried. But all I can tell you from what i've heard is that dsl is cable light. If you have to choose between the two, choose cable. But if you're getting a good offer for DSL, go for it.

 

[Neutron]

drew..

I stream videos quite well on cable. Does DSL stream as well?

Tron

 

[TKpervert]

I tried DSL 3 years ago and never did get a chance to give it a speed test 'cause I couldn't get the connection to stay up for more than 5 minutes at a stretch.
I fought it for two weeks.
I'm sure it was a local problem (maybe even my house wiring, I dunno) because I know quite a few folks who have DSL and like it a lot.
When cable became available in my area 18 months ago I jumped at it and now swear by it.
I've seen it hit 3.1 Mbps during downloads from heavyduty websites, but it normally slogs along at 1.86 Mbps or so.
It ain't cheap at $56 a month but it's worth it.

If it can save anyone out there some money, I have a SpeedStream 5260 Ethernet ADSL modem you can have for free if you can figure out a way to supply me with your mailing address.

Can't help you with Bellsouth DSL Neut,
my DSL experience was with PacBell here in Southern Calif.
I say give them a try. If you don't like it cable is still an option.

 

[Leo tickles]

I have DSL and Xbox Live works great on it. I read that it lags major unless you have a good connection. Here is a link to test your connection for free. http://bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/

 

[TKpervert]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that when I tried DSL I was 13,800 feet away from the 'hub', which is stretching the limit of 18,000 feet.

( I scored 2.4 Mbps (cable) with Leo's test site).

 

[Leo tickles]

It has a T1 connection display, and when I'm on Xbox Live and the computer both at the same time, I get more then T1. Amaaaaaazzzinggg.....

 

[AquaFeline]

DSL, 1.2Mbps in the land of ubergeeks
But I don't get cable and I don't want to deal with another company and who knows what the speeds are like here overall (fast because there's a lot of need and so the infrastructure was built up or slow because there's a lot of traffic?)

 

[TKpervert]

My cable provider swears up and down that the old 'the more subscribers on your feed, the slower it gets' doesn't apply anymore. I can't explain that in a technical way, all I can say is that in the 18 months I've had it, the faster it gets. Weird.
I think my area here is on fiber optic lines.
Whatever, it rips. I really don't see a need for anything faster.

 

[tommytikl]

Cable is almost always faster than DSL.
Comcast(on the East Coast) offer 4MB downstream!

DSL can't touch that...

Also DSL can have connection AND service issues that I haven't seen with Cable.

If you have the choise I would go with Cable...DSL woo's you with the seemly good deal, free software...blah blah but DSL will never be faster than cable.

 

[Drago69]

When I switched from my 56k modem, to a high-speed connection, I went with DSL because my cousins were using it, and it seemed really fast for them.

I got the DSL, and the damn thing was slower than my 56k modem, and half the time wouldn't load pictures and stuff.

So I got rid of that and got Cable, and have been using it for years, and it's very fast. =)

I ddon't know why DSL didn't work for me... I was with the same company as my cousin's and everything... hmmmmmmm!

 

[Soda83pop]

My cable provider swears up and down that the old 'the more subscribers on your feed, the slower it gets' doesn't apply anymore.

Only because now instead of having just enough bandwidth available the cable companies are learning to plan ahead; it has nothing to do with the any technological advances Im aware. You still share the bandwidth with other subscribers.

With that being said, I would still go with cable, especially when it comes to uploads and streaming. If you are just surfing the web and not doing anything too taxing, you would probably never know the difference. But the first time you decided to download a new driver or a movie, or if others are downloading from you, the difference would be there.