Which is better...cable or DSL

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Having trouble with Road Runner getting signal...am considering switching to DSL. Do use cable router to network 2 computers within house. Any opinions on DSL vs Cable??????
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 38
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    I'm mad at my cable company for jacking up the prices but that aside I do think cable has faster downloads and the same upload speed as DSL. My cable does slow down a little bit during peak hours. A friend of mine has DSL and loves it. Unless you get some extreme deal, I say cable and DSL are about equal.
  • Reply 2 of 38
    macusersmacusers Posts: 840member
    cable is so much better, and my cable company just LOWERED monthly payments too
  • Reply 3 of 38
    gargoylegargoyle Posts: 660member
    Over on this side of the pond, cable seems a lot better. Some areas are better than others too. I personally have had about 4 hours downtime in about 3 years, and get very good speeds 95% of the time. Yet I know others that live just 5 miles away that have slow speeds, and very intermittent connections.



    However, DSL over here is very highly contended. I think 20 or 30 to 1 is not uncommon for home DSL. Makes for very poor performance at busy times.
  • Reply 4 of 38
    My cable is capped at 768kbps down, 128kbps up, so it matches the speed I got with DSL.



    However, my cable company (and many others, from what I understand) demands the right to snoop on my web browsing and sell that information to marketers. Check your terms and conditions. My cable installer wasn't even going to give me a copy until I made a fuss about it. Apparently, most people never read them.



    For some reason, DSL providers don't tend to include that provision. Also, my cable provider prevents any incoming connections with ports under 1024. This means I can't host a website on the standard port 80. My DSL provider never did that to me either (they don't care WHAT I used the bandwidth for).



    Also, many cable companies have terms of service which say you can't have routers/NAT boxes (giving internet access to multiple computers). This is, of course, because they want to sell you this service at additional cost. Again, my DSL provider never included such provisions (and in this case, my cable company didn't either).



    Given the choice, I'd choose DSL in my area. Unfortunately, I am currently too far from the CO to get decent DSL speeds, so I have to settle for cable.



    Your mileage may vary, depending on your service.



    John
  • Reply 5 of 38
    kennethkenneth Posts: 832member
    Cable is popular in the USA... and slightly cheaper than DSL

    BUT DSL is quite reliable than Cable and higher speed.
  • Reply 6 of 38
    macusersmacusers Posts: 840member
    I have cable and i get 3.2 MBPS, it is much faster than the people that have DSL here and it is cheaper too, it all depends on where you live
  • Reply 7 of 38
    xmogerxmoger Posts: 242member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by MacUsers

    it all depends on where you live



    Yeah.



    It seems everytime I hear about somebody with 1, 2, 5MBit downloads, he's on cable.
  • Reply 8 of 38
    If you live close to a telephone station get dsl, if not cable...



    DSL gets slower the further away you are from the server, while cable just decreases based on use in your neighborhood - though cable lag can be fixed by adding another hub and dsl lag will only be fixed by moving.
  • Reply 9 of 38
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Comcast Cable in Seattle sucks. $46 a month. Brownouts and "dumb Modems". I don't like the fact that I can't Ping or run traceroutes. The RCA "Modem" that I use never shows the right status. Sometimes I lose sync and I need to restart. I liked DSL because I could always tell if I had sync to the CO via ATM.
  • Reply 10 of 38
    cubedudecubedude Posts: 1,556member
    I have SBC DSL and I get about 1.2Mbits(do I have that right?). I get this extra Yahoo package that was included with it, so I get an extra 500mb of webspace on their servers. I'm not quite sure if I can share the connection without paying extra(yet).
  • Reply 11 of 38
    I have optimum online cable and get up to 8.3 megabits download and roughly 1 megabit upload. The e-mail service sucks due to its unreliability, but the connection to the internet is hardly ever down. But, since I have a mac.com e-mail, which comes with it's own problems, I need not notice.
  • Reply 12 of 38
    cubedudecubedude Posts: 1,556member
    How much are you paying for that, and where are you?
  • Reply 13 of 38
    cakecake Posts: 1,010member
  • Reply 14 of 38
    Don't forget that with cable you are usually sharing that connection with several neighbors and that if many of you happen to be online at the same time, your speeds will plummet dramatically.



    DSL, on the other hand, is a guaranteed pipe to your house.



    Personally, I've had better experiences with and would recommend DSL unless cable is just ridiculously cheaper in your area.
  • Reply 15 of 38
    applenutapplenut Posts: 5,768member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Brad

    Don't forget that with cable you are usually sharing that connection with several neighbors and that if many of you happen to be online at the same time, your speeds will plummet dramatically.



    DSL, on the other hand, is a guaranteed pipe to your house.



    Personally, I've had better experiences with and would recommend DSL unless cable is just ridiculously cheaper in your area.




    I'm sorry but i just dont believe that anymore. And I've read that DSL isn't exactly dedicated bandwidth anyways.



    My cable connection here is absolutely insane.... at all times of the day. Optimum Online rules (except for blocking port 80)
  • Reply 16 of 38
    As I said, I believe you are *usually* sharing a connection with cable. I have firsthand experience seeing connection speeds dropping to about a fourth of the fastest normal speeds during peak times. This is with RoadRunner's cable service in North Carolina. This has been a regular problem with my uncle's connection. He originally thought the problem was his line. RoadRunner checked it out okay. His brother actually works for the cable company; so, I believe we can trust that they actually checked it out thoroughly. Then he thought the problem was his computer and asked me to check it for problems. There were none. I even brought over my Mac to be extra sure. The only explanation I found was the one I've heard so many times over the years: cable's shared bandwidth.



    On the other hand, every single day for over two years, my DSL connection has provided a solid, constant 1.5Mb/256kb connection. Every day I got the same speeds up and down. I watched my bandwidth constantly via NetMonitor. I *always* got these speeds when connecting to reliable servers such as akamai's mirrors or the bandwidth speed testers.



    As always, though, your mileage may vary.
  • Reply 17 of 38
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    I think Optimum Online is like 10 megabit / 1 megabit or something insane like that. I wish I had that...or even half that...
  • Reply 18 of 38
    mrmistermrmister Posts: 1,095member
    I have DSL, with 1500 down/128 up, and while I yearn for even more speed like I see from cable, Verizon just dropped the rates for my area down through the floor--so I now pay just $29.95 for my connection, which is CHEAP, since I don't have cable for television, and getting a cable modem means you need to pay extra if you don't already get cable service.



    Also, I do believe that bandwidth drops at peak times on cable--I've seen it with my own eyes. It never drops on my DSL line, not in 2+ years.



    So, I'm sticking with what I have...though if cable ever made a lot more sense I'd jump for higher speeds.
  • Reply 19 of 38
    applenutapplenut Posts: 5,768member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Eugene

    I think Optimum Online is like 10 megabit / 1 megabit or something insane like that. I wish I had that...or even half that...



    yep, about the only positive thing about living in da bronx right now
  • Reply 20 of 38
    cubedudecubedude Posts: 1,556member
    My speed keeps falling. I've gone from 1.2 to 1.0 to 968kbps to 894kbps. What's up with that?
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