SAN JOSE: DSL or Cable?

so pricing is obviously different, but i am looking at:

At&t DSL/sbc DSL for $35/month @ 6mbps

or

Comcast Cable $44/mothh @6mbps w/ powerboost up to 12mbps(dunno how that works...)

in my area, DSL is so so, nothing spectacular. but i have heard that my local area does much better with cable, so i guess i am asking the locals how they are faring with either company?

currently i have sbc dsl

thanks for you input!

 

How far are you from the CO? If you're within 20 miles you can probably obtain rated speeds with decent latency from DSL. If you're not close, you can throw and numbers out the window.

Personally, i would always go with cable over DSL. Comcast is known for poor support and service, but i've had them as my provider for 2 months and haven't had any downtime or problems with customer service. I have always found cable to be more consistent than DSL despite the fact that with cable, you essentially share bandwidth with the entire area.

As for powerboost, for the first part of a download or upload, you get extra throughput and it scales back down after a short period of time. I have Comcast and they advertise powerboost for my area, but i don't get it, so meh.

 

Comcast is pretty good in my area in SJ. DSL has died for me a quite a bit with Earthlink a while back and it was horrible.

Comcast. Has only died ONCE for about a minute in the 5+ months I've had it.

Expensive but worth it.

 

dunno about where your are (mainly cos i live in the UK ) but what i know is unlike dsl, cable speeds dont downgrade the further your from the main exchange. go with cable if you can

 

i have AT&T DSL and it's not too bad. would i pay the extra for cable? probably not as the speed from DSL is fast enough for web-surfing and gaming. However, for downloading purposes, the max speed i've gotten was around 400 kb/sec while the plan i pay for is 512 kb/sec.

that said, i live pretty close to the "hub" <- i guess that's what you'd call it?

 

The "CO", or the central office here in the states

 

according to some local sources, it not that close to my house....

i just asked my mom and we're paying $40 already, which must be the 3 or 6mbps plan but...sure as hell doesnt feel like it!

since my pops name is on the bill, im going to talk to him and see if we can jsut switch over to comcast and go a couple day's w/o internet till they get it in or something. this is BS lol

 

If the cable network is on Optical Fiber, it will own the DSL one, even at same speed.

Optical Fiber is 2GB/s so the DSL arguments of "we have no slowdowns caused by internet jamm!" is useless on OF.

I'm on 7.1mbps cable connection and download speed is 500-800 (always depend on server but that's usually it) KBPS

 

thanks for the input.

i wouldnt know if the cable lines are ran with optical fiber, it could be since they were digging up cables around here just last year (comcast had contracted companies to handle this, that is) so im assuming that must have been it.

i'm going to try my luck with cable. whats the worse that can happen? i'll lose internet for a couple of days while switch back, at the worse, is what lol

thanks again for the input guys. feel free to add more!