For the longest time I've always had DSL. Whether it was at my parents house, or in my last condos as a student, thats just what was available. Well, with the new school year starting, I had to move, and in the place I moved into, my roomate already had a cable connection to the internet, which I hooked into and am going to just share the price for it with him. Well, even at home on my dads DSL, which is a 1.5 megabit connection, the max download I ever got was around 150 kb a sec. A respectable speed, to be sure, but when I tried downloading on this new connection, this is the average speed I got.



Definetly much better, and only half the price of my Dads DSL connection to boot. It kind of makes me wonder, why is DSL so much more popular then cable if cable is so much faster for less money?

I can't get either of those where I live. I'm stuck with either wireless or dialup. But wireless isn't bad, my connection speed is usually around 1 Mb/s

I used to get those speeds but ever since Cox "Upgraded" their servers I've only been getting 200 - 300.

The thing with cable is if more people get leeched onto your cable line... your speeds are going to suffer (at least at peak times)

It all depends where you live. My uncle gets 750 K-BYTES per second and his DSL is free.

How can you beat that?

My brothers house is the hub for all the DSL in his area, so he's got a free T1 line and 5 free phone lines. Its not as fast as cable, but the 5 free phone lines are quite the bonus.

It all depends on where you are. If you're in a high traffic area on cable, you'll lose. If you're really far from the phone compnay/isp with DSL, you lose.

[QUOTE=Vincent Valentine]It all depends on where you are. If you're in a high traffic area on cable, you'll lose. If you're really far from the phone compnay/isp with DSL, you lose.[/QUOTE]

DSL suffers from high traffic just as much as cable. Hell, I never even notice peak traffic times on any decent cable network anymore.

While cable is suseptible to heavy peak time usage, most, if not all cable companies make sure to have plenty of bandwith to cover it.

I know Roadrunner has been huge in this area, and I could download at any time of the day at max speed.

I've never noticed high traffic problems either... but that's because Cox rocks.

I have roadrunner. It's good. Mostly.

Why is dsl more popular? Maybe because you can't really get cable in very many places.

[QUOTE=Vincent Valentine]Cox rocks.[/QUOTE]

:em321:

haha

I love cox.

I haven't noticed too much of a difference in speeds at different times of the day so far. But I've only been here a few days so its too early to tell. Still, considering my last connection only downloaded around 50 kb/sec, if I even got half of what I'm getting now that'd still be a big improvement.

Is there a website that gives broadband ratings based on location?

I have Cox and they are down almost double the time they are up. I'm always having problems on the internet. It's becoming a real pain. I want Comcast

Yeah, what I find about big providers is their service is ENTIRELY regional. I'm just glad I'm with a smaller ISP and they're always up and speedy.

I have Cox for cable connection too. I don't have any cable problems. I don't remember the last time it went down.

I am also moving from my DSL service at residence to cable in my new house.

Question: Will having 10 guys sharing one router be any slower than if, say, these 10 guys were using seperate hookups in seperate buildings in the same neighbourhood?

Yes, much slower.

You're sharing 1 cable line, instead of 10 cable lines. Those cable lines tie into a much thicker pipeline made for those modems. It's the equivalent of watering 10 plants at once from the same hose, or 1 hose for each plant.

Aw drat. I was afraid of something like that. I guess I'll just have to pray that they aren't bandwidth pigs.

My cable company (MDM, It sucks bad) caps me off at 30 kilobytes a second. Quite annoying.

You'll notice significant bandwidth drops if there is any serious activity on your network. My room mate is always downloading porn via bit torrent and my net speed sucks because of it.

I love fiber optics.

Its so awesome that I can play a 40 player game of CSS with a 14 - 20 MS ping.

Or download and stream stuff and not take a hit on my ping.

[QUOTE=Rogue Leader] Well, even at home on my dads DSL, which is a 1.5 megabit connection, the max download I ever got was around 150 kb a sec. A respectable speed, to be sure, but when I tried downloading on this new connection, this is the average speed I got.

Definetly much better, and only half the price of my Dads DSL connection to boot. It kind of makes me wonder, why is DSL so much more popular then cable if cable is so much faster for less money?[/QUOTE]

150 Kilobytes a second is about as fast as you can get on a 1.5 megabit line. You're probably using a 4.5 megabit cable line where you are now. As for more people using DSL, well, it has more to do with the fact it comes through the phone line, which makes it availible in more palces than cable, which needs to have cable lines layed to an area before cable internet is availible.

Cable lines go pretty much everywhere phone lines do.

The availability doesn't really have all that much to do with where there are lines.

It has to do with whether there are digital cabel lines and how many people are using said line. If it's old cable line, there's no internet for you.

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]DSL suffers from high traffic just as much as cable. Hell, I never even notice peak traffic times on any decent cable network anymore.[/QUOTE]
hmm... my speeds are ALLWAYS consistent (DSL). Oh well. I am content with it even though it may only be 2/5 the speed of cable.

How is comcast cable internet?

They offer 6mbit in my area for like $55 a month.

It's regional, but I say try them out for a month. They're usually pretty damn good.

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]DSL suffers from high traffic just as much as cable. Hell, I never even notice peak traffic times on any decent cable network anymore.[/QUOTE]


Don't you live in the middle of nowhere, or at least in a sparsely poulated area? That's likely the reason for a lack of slowdown more than DSL vs. cable. Urban areas where there is a lot of strain on one pipe is where you'll experience slowdown at peak hours, especially with the big name providers. Of course, using a smaller company helps as well as they tend be a little bit more expensive, which turns the typical customer away.