DSL or CABLE

I must admit that I am confused by the difference in speed/ quality between dsl service (are they all the same?) and cable service connections. I spoke to the time warner and they are offering a package that is less expensive than regular cable connection. It is 384 Kbps downstream and 128 Kbps upstream. Is this comparable to dsl?

I just bought a new dv4000 and I am looking to download music. Do I really need the better cable connection or is the above speed adequate for this?

thank you in advance for any help you can give me with this!

marnie

 

I would say do some research with people in your area that have both as it always depends on the area you are in as some areas where not many people have cable, cable is the way to go as it is fast as heck.

If you have a decent DSL provider in your area, I would say go with DSL as it is a "PRIVATE" line for you alone. I say this because with cable you area sharing it with the people in your area and you will experience slowdowns if many people are doing huge file transfers or downloading many items at one time. If you live in an apartment building I strongly suggest staying away from cable. Unless things have changed recently, all this still applies to cable. Also cable providers to my knowledge all have bandwidth caps, so if you go over their limit you have to pay for each additional gigabyte of information.

Yes some DSL providers have the cap as well, but my ISP, Bell Sympatico.ca in Etobicoke, Ontario, it's just west of downtown Toronto, so yeah it's basically Toronto, has no cap for highspeed edition.

All in all I would suggest DSL, even the lite edition is pretty darn good at 19.95 I believe, and recently they just offered current customers of highspeed an upgrade to Ultra Highspeed for only 5 bucks more a month.

Anyhoo' yes my preference is DSL as it is stable as heck, without the slowdowns of some cable providers in some areas.

Before anyone flames me, yes I know cable is faster, and lots of people have no problems with it, but it all depends on the area as I have stated earlier. If you find out your area is stable and fine, by all means go with cable, but I like my DSL

Cheers,
Mike

Oops, oh yeah, the above bandwidth you mentioned should be fine for music downloads, just don't expect to download at crazy speeds as the speed you gave is kinda slow. If the price is right then go for it as it is not bad if it costs you like 30 bucks a month or something, anything above that price point and I say forget it and go highspeed if you can or just get basic dsl.

 

I would say cable if you can afford it. Im on Comcast for 19.99 for 6 months then it goes to 43.00. All i can say abiut it is i love it. You pay double for DSL and you 5 times as much speed. Cable is at 6000Kbps Download and the upload is 786Kbps Upload. But its your personal choice. Whats in my area? Cable might not even be in your area so your probaly forced in getting DSL.

 

Cable offers much faster connections that aren't impacted by your distance from certain points where the company has their hardware, like DSL. That package they're offering is very slow though, I'm not sure if it will meet your needs or not. You can try that speed and see if it works for you, but a normal cable connection is 10x faster or better.

 

Thanks for the advice.

I live in nyc. So do you think dsl would be a better choice? Also, are all dsl offers the same in terms of speed? Are there any that are better than others?

marnie

 

In NYC, definitely get cable. Call TWC and get Earthlink (it's cheaper for the same service). Mine gets download speeds of 600kbps from some sites.

 

I got cheap DSL- 15/month for 768K download and 128K upload. Only drawback is that it made the phone line fuzzy, even with the filters installed. But it's not too bad because I really don't talk on the phone much.

 

Yeah if your in NYC, definatly get cable then. You will be much more happier with your choice.

 

I don't understand why you suggest cable in NYC. Isn't there a high density of people and so he is more likely to be sharing the bandwidth w/ neighbors and more likely to see degraded performance?

 

Like i said before, its personal choice Obviously cable is faster all around.

 

Thank you all for your feedback.

Anyone have any dsl favorites in nyc? Is there a difference between them?

marnie

 

If DSL, all i really like is SBC for DSL. Im sure there are others, you just need to do some of your own research around your area.

 

I don't think they offer SBC in NYC. Anyway, I used to have Verizon DSL in NYC and it was unbelievably slow. Also, maybe it's because NYC has ancient phone lines, but the distortion over the voice line is pretty bad even with a filter. I still think cable is a much better option. With Earthlink through TWC, it's $42.99 per month with the first 6 months at $19.99. And like I said before, I get 600kbps downloads from many sites... most recently the 280MB BF2 patch. A friend of mine with DSL gave up and came over to my place to burn it to disc.

 

Cable is a good choice if the provider has sufficient UVR's installed. To find out, you really need to ask neighbors how theirs is doing.

 

Did anyone read my post? Like I said, if you would like to get cable for its all out speed advantages by all means get it, but be sure you're not in a highly dense area, b/c those high speeds won't always be there at peak hours. Since you're in NYC I would suggest getting dsl if your local dsl providers are half decent.

People get too caught up in cable's highspeeds, but those speeds aren't always available, but with dsl you are almost always at 100%, depending on how far you are from your hq. With dense areas cable can get really moody. Horrible latencies, not being able to connect to the internet and such.

Cheers,
Mike

 

Yes, NYC is densely populated. No, the speed is not affected much if at all during peak hours. I'm sure the cable company has compensated for this. I've had cable in 2 different apartments, know many other cable users all over the city, and I know that none of us would switch to the much cheaper DSL. One gripe I do have about cable is that once in awhile, the cable goes out for a few hours. It's not often, more like every few months, but seemingly always at a crucial time.

 

Yes, remember now that the cable company plans for high density areas. Im sure they adjust there things so its all even through out the area. Flat out - Cable is your better choice for downloading things.
And what was mentioned about the outages, in a big area, they would have the settings set pretty good and it shouldnt happen. Only thing that could make it go out would be way, and i mean way to many people on at once, or a bad storm. I had issues with outages and turns out that 2 cable boxes on the outside of my neighborhood were in horrible condition. Evern since that day, i have never had an outage or slow down with comcast.

 

That's the thing about cable, those extended periods of time when it's down, plus their bandwidth caps. I don't know about the providers around you guys, but here in Toronto with Bell Sympatico there are no caps and my dsl NEVER goes down for lengthy periods of time. Whenever it is going to go down they let you know, and that hasn't happened to me in 3 years or so.

DSL BABY~!

Cheers,
Mike

 

Well with my comcast, i get the full 6mbps, and there hasnt been in outage in 3 months. Im in a different place though, im in the city but just down in a little valley in the center of my city. There are animals on the cables and trees down all the time since its densly forest, and its not bad at all. If you do get cable, try to make it Comcast only. The one good thing about them, is they give you free months if you feel like there was an outage, plus i get free mcafee.

 

Get Verizon's FiOS if possible. It runs on fiber, just like the broadband in Asia. I'd stick with cable due to the limited distance from CO to home.

 

McAfee stinks
Go Avast~!

 

Avast is free
Mcafee is the best for your money when it does have more protection

 

Free? I have the full Pro version

Free of course, shhhhhh