I have Comcast cable at home and Covad DSL at work. Cable is definitely better - about 5-8x faster, both up and down. No matter what time of the day or night.
RoadRunner has problems everywhere because it is a shared service - it's simply a problem with RoadRunner (I have friends all over the US with RoadRunner and they all have the same problem). I have absolutely no trouble ever with Comcast. And I have a router with 3 computers and 1 laser printer hooked to it.
I have Comcast cable at home and Covad DSL at work. Cable is definitely better - about 5-8x faster, both up and down. No matter what time of the day or night.
Cable has the POTENTIAL of being faster. You obviously haven't had the evil experience of rate-limited cable modems.
All in all, the original poster's answer appears to depend on where he lives.
My Verizon DSL has an 8KB/s upstream speed on a good day, but it's generally just 4KB/s. It's really just enough to play an online game with seven other people and voice chat, but forget doing things like transferring files from your computer and video chatting. Download speeds are pretty good, though, at 80KB/s.
My speed keeps falling. I've gone from 1.2 to 1.0 to 968kbps to 894kbps. What's up with that?
from MacFixit.com (today's featured article):
Troubleshooting Mac OS X 10.2.6: Turning off delayed acks for faster Internet speeds
If you are noticing slower Internet throughput after updating to Mac OS X 10.2.6, you may be able to regain your previous speed with the aid of the all-purpose utility Cocktail.
Apparently, the changes made to networking components in Mac OS X 10.2.6 turned on "delayed acks" for some users, resulting in a significant speed decrease under some circumstances. Cocktail can turn off delayed acks, which the utility's documentation says "usually increases the number of packets on the network while decreasing average response time of an isolated HTTP transaction."
MacFixIt reader Bob Gallant writes in with a case example "Before installing Mac OS X 10.2.6, my DSL download speed was consistently 712 Kb/s as measured on the Verizon DSL speed site. After using Software Update on my Beige G3 desktop for Mac OS X 10.2.6 and updating my iBook to Mac OS X 10.2.6 with the combo updater, I got 399 Kb/s as the DSL download speed on both Macs. I got the utility 'Cocktail' from VersionTracker. Upon selecting the 'Network' function and then the 'Optimize' tab, I noted that the flag labeled 'Turn off delayed acks' was set.
"I reset that flag and the DSL down load speed then measured at 712 Kb/s. I can toggle between the two states and repeat the DSL speed variation pretty much exactly. The speed is about half normal with the flag set as in Mac OS X 10.2.6 but goes to full with the flag reset. On restarting Mac OS X, the flag gets set as the default condition and needs to be reset via Cocktail to get full speed."
The utility Broadband Optimizer can also be used to turn off delayed acks, and places items in the Startup Folder to make the changes semi-permanent. Alternatively, you can use the following Terminal command (which can further be worked into a shell script):
i had earthlink dsl 1500/256 and never got above 800/100. When i called and tried to see what was up they said that it wasn't guaranteed and i knew that. They tried to fix it but never did...so i switched to cox HSI cable. I paid $50 a month for earthlink and only $40 for cox. now my i am consistantly at 2900/300 which is awsome. I called and they say that they have the capablility to release the cap and give everyone around 10000/2000 like optima or whatever its called. Go cable you wont regret it. at least thats my experience
I'd love to get cable, but for some reason I can't get it at my house.
Thanks, GraphicUmp, I found the article in the April 2002 issue of MacAddict on speeding up your Mac, and part of it was speeding up broadband. It was pretty much exactly what you said.
It's really up to your area. In some areas, cable is great, in others, it's crap. Go with cable, if your download speed sucks (in my area it's 2x the speed of a modem) or if your provider is say Adelphia, then cancel and get dsl instead.
I have DSL with Pathetic Bell. I am jumping ship when Comcast cable comes online. 256k up yehaw
SBC may be bad now, but I hardly consider Comcast a better alternative in its current state. I pay $60/mo for about 1500/256 megabit, and for whatever reasons I get spurts of downtime. For the price of Comcast, I would quickly opt for Speakeasy's premium DSL options if I was within range of a CO.
adelphia cable is faster than dsl here in ashland ky. i can't get dsl and they say that if you get 75% of rated that's all they promise. if it consistantly less than 75% then they can boost the signal. i get using several speedtests (what are your favorites speed test places) 2400-4800 with 124 upload.
dsl around here gives upto 1500 and 700+ upload but dsl also gives you 20 hrs of dialup so you can travel, or as a backup if it goes down.
i'm satsfied with cable, they bundled it with my hbo etc,and i pay about 33$
hey when dsl comes maybe i'll try it after i talk with some about it.
my problem with adelphia cable is i can't send with mac mail so i just use their web mail system.
i'd like toknow how the above can get cable to up my speed and upload speed, but then wheni send pictures to .mac it doens't take that long. but i'd like to get 10000k down and 1000k up
yep, about the only positive thing about living in da bronx right now
Yeah, I'm in a weird part of NJ, and Optimum Online was the only nice thing about dealing with Cablevision. (Of course the other cable company in NJ is Comcast, so it's the lesser of two evils anyway.) But now they're jacking up the rates just a little (up to $45 per month now, would be $50 without TV). We'll see if they do what they've been doing with their TV packages -- fewer channels (translates to less bandwidth) for higher prices. With DSL prices actually lowering a bit, it's not the no-brainer it once was.
Yeah, I'm in a weird part of NJ, and Optimum Online was the only nice thing about dealing with Cablevision. (Of course the other cable company in NJ is Comcast, so it's the lesser of two evils anyway.) But now they're jacking up the rates just a little (up to $45 per month now, would be $50 without TV). We'll see if they do what they've been doing with their TV packages -- fewer channels (translates to less bandwidth) for higher prices. With DSL prices actually lowering a bit, it's not the no-brainer it once was.
10 megabit down / 1 megabit up for 45 bucks means you cant complain at all.
That connection is worth a ton more! I think speakeasy charges like 65 for something like that - consider yourself lucky..Some of us pay 45 for Comcast 1.5 down...basically what I am trying to say is that I hate you for having that connection. J/K
It is a great connection, and the service has been flawless for the past 3 years now. I'm just nervous because, well, this is Cablevision we're talking about.
Personally i like DSL, it's more secure and in general technology is better, much depends on the providers, they are not supposed to supply service to people who are far from their hubs, but it happens, in that case you will never get a solid connection.
I went through cable (Rogers) it was a disaster, i hate that service with a passion, unreliable, c/s @ rogers is baaaad, etc..
Then for some time i had look tv/internet combo, and that was THE worst imaginable piece of s***. They use wireless transmission to download stuff, and phone line(!!!) to upload, so it was blocking your line, and it was so unreliable that they pulled the plug on that.
Finally i eneded up with Sympatico (Bell) DSL, and so far so good, they have different levels of service and it goes up to 3 megabits i believe.
They don't mind home network sharing the same connection, and just yesterday i got an e-mail saying that all the restrictions on bandwidth usage were lifted, no limits, go nuts! :-)
I guess it all depends.
There more and more companies offering wireless service (802.11a) at least in Toronto area, maybe in a year or so prices will drop and i will switch to that, you got guaranteed 1.5 megabits (not up to, but guaranteed, kind like on T1, because they have so much overhead). Wireless networks will become more and more popular, in fact i believe Bell is already offering wireless business access in Quebec, and since they sign SLA, technology must be good enough.
Here in Calgary, the cable speeds generally blow away the dsl speeds. maybe its the infrastructure. I routinely get a 1/2 MB/s on my cable (and more!) and never approached that with 2 different dsl connections in different neighborhoos.
Does any have any expierences with Comcast Cable? I'd like to get Vonage, and completely ditch SBC, but that would require getting cable internet access.
Comments
RoadRunner has problems everywhere because it is a shared service - it's simply a problem with RoadRunner (I have friends all over the US with RoadRunner and they all have the same problem). I have absolutely no trouble ever with Comcast. And I have a router with 3 computers and 1 laser printer hooked to it.
Originally posted by GraphicUmp
I have Comcast cable at home and Covad DSL at work. Cable is definitely better - about 5-8x faster, both up and down. No matter what time of the day or night.
Cable has the POTENTIAL of being faster. You obviously haven't had the evil experience of rate-limited cable modems.
All in all, the original poster's answer appears to depend on where he lives.
John
CubeDude
My speed keeps falling. I've gone from 1.2 to 1.0 to 968kbps to 894kbps. What's up with that?
from MacFixit.com (today's featured article):
Troubleshooting Mac OS X 10.2.6: Turning off delayed acks for faster Internet speeds
If you are noticing slower Internet throughput after updating to Mac OS X 10.2.6, you may be able to regain your previous speed with the aid of the all-purpose utility Cocktail.
Apparently, the changes made to networking components in Mac OS X 10.2.6 turned on "delayed acks" for some users, resulting in a significant speed decrease under some circumstances. Cocktail can turn off delayed acks, which the utility's documentation says "usually increases the number of packets on the network while decreasing average response time of an isolated HTTP transaction."
MacFixIt reader Bob Gallant writes in with a case example "Before installing Mac OS X 10.2.6, my DSL download speed was consistently 712 Kb/s as measured on the Verizon DSL speed site. After using Software Update on my Beige G3 desktop for Mac OS X 10.2.6 and updating my iBook to Mac OS X 10.2.6 with the combo updater, I got 399 Kb/s as the DSL download speed on both Macs. I got the utility 'Cocktail' from VersionTracker. Upon selecting the 'Network' function and then the 'Optimize' tab, I noted that the flag labeled 'Turn off delayed acks' was set.
"I reset that flag and the DSL down load speed then measured at 712 Kb/s. I can toggle between the two states and repeat the DSL speed variation pretty much exactly. The speed is about half normal with the flag set as in Mac OS X 10.2.6 but goes to full with the flag reset. On restarting Mac OS X, the flag gets set as the default condition and needs to be reset via Cocktail to get full speed."
The utility Broadband Optimizer can also be used to turn off delayed acks, and places items in the Startup Folder to make the changes semi-permanent. Alternatively, you can use the following Terminal command (which can further be worked into a shell script):
sudo sysctl -w net.inet.tcp.delayed_ack=0
Thanks, GraphicUmp, I found the article in the April 2002 issue of MacAddict on speeding up your Mac, and part of it was speeding up broadband. It was pretty much exactly what you said.
Originally posted by taliesin
I have DSL with Pathetic Bell. I am jumping ship when Comcast cable comes online. 256k up yehaw
SBC may be bad now, but I hardly consider Comcast a better alternative in its current state. I pay $60/mo for about 1500/256 megabit, and for whatever reasons I get spurts of downtime. For the price of Comcast, I would quickly opt for Speakeasy's premium DSL options if I was within range of a CO.
dsl around here gives upto 1500 and 700+ upload but dsl also gives you 20 hrs of dialup so you can travel, or as a backup if it goes down.
i'm satsfied with cable, they bundled it with my hbo etc,and i pay about 33$
hey when dsl comes maybe i'll try it after i talk with some about it.
my problem with adelphia cable is i can't send with mac mail so i just use their web mail system.
i'd like toknow how the above can get cable to up my speed and upload speed, but then wheni send pictures to .mac it doens't take that long. but i'd like to get 10000k down and 1000k up
Originally posted by applenut
yep, about the only positive thing about living in da bronx right now
Yeah, I'm in a weird part of NJ, and Optimum Online was the only nice thing about dealing with Cablevision. (Of course the other cable company in NJ is Comcast, so it's the lesser of two evils anyway.) But now they're jacking up the rates just a little (up to $45 per month now, would be $50 without TV). We'll see if they do what they've been doing with their TV packages -- fewer channels (translates to less bandwidth) for higher prices. With DSL prices actually lowering a bit, it's not the no-brainer it once was.
Originally posted by BuonRotto
Yeah, I'm in a weird part of NJ, and Optimum Online was the only nice thing about dealing with Cablevision. (Of course the other cable company in NJ is Comcast, so it's the lesser of two evils anyway.) But now they're jacking up the rates just a little (up to $45 per month now, would be $50 without TV). We'll see if they do what they've been doing with their TV packages -- fewer channels (translates to less bandwidth) for higher prices. With DSL prices actually lowering a bit, it's not the no-brainer it once was.
10 megabit down / 1 megabit up for 45 bucks means you cant complain at all.
That connection is worth a ton more! I think speakeasy charges like 65 for something like that - consider yourself lucky..Some of us pay 45 for Comcast 1.5 down...basically what I am trying to say is that I hate you for having that connection.
I went through cable (Rogers) it was a disaster, i hate that service with a passion, unreliable, c/s @ rogers is baaaad, etc..
Then for some time i had look tv/internet combo, and that was THE worst imaginable piece of s***. They use wireless transmission to download stuff, and phone line(!!!) to upload, so it was blocking your line, and it was so unreliable that they pulled the plug on that.
Finally i eneded up with Sympatico (Bell) DSL, and so far so good, they have different levels of service and it goes up to 3 megabits i believe.
They don't mind home network sharing the same connection, and just yesterday i got an e-mail saying that all the restrictions on bandwidth usage were lifted, no limits, go nuts! :-)
I guess it all depends.
There more and more companies offering wireless service (802.11a) at least in Toronto area, maybe in a year or so prices will drop and i will switch to that, you got guaranteed 1.5 megabits (not up to, but guaranteed, kind like on T1, because they have so much overhead). Wireless networks will become more and more popular, in fact i believe Bell is already offering wireless business access in Quebec, and since they sign SLA, technology must be good enough.
:-)