OT: DSL Vs. Cable

[Kevin J. Cummings]

Robin Laing wrote:
> 
> Service from either may differ on the location.  Cable needs to be 
> segmented or it runs into load problems at certain times of the day. I 
> had Cable and moved to DSL.  During the change over to DSL, I could 
> connect to my Cable providers servers faster via DSL than Cable.  Even 
> talking to the system admin was a waste of time.
> 
> My experience is DSL is much more reliable.
> 
> Mileage may vary. :)

Indeed, up in this neck of the woods (New England), cable is much faster 
than DSL.  Most cable companies up here are providing 3-5Mbps on home 
connections.  And while Robin is right, they are not anywhere's near 
that speed during the day, they are at night after most of your 
neighbors have gone to bed.  B^)

I have found that DSL cannot also guarentee their listed speed either. 
The closer you are to the switch (or a repeater), the better the actual 
speed is.  The further away, the connection slows down.

So, you have 2 competing standards that cannot guarentee their 
advertised speeds.  I have found that I'd rather have the potentially 
faster connection (for the same price) for those times when it actually 
does get to be faster.  B^)

I am also blest with a current cable connection that perports to be 
7Mbps and will soon rise to 10Mbps (thou I rarely see download speeds 
above 400KBps, that's 4Mbps, that's still faster than Verizon DSL 
provides at best).  Verizon is cutting DSL prices in New England to try 
and stay competitive with the cable companies, even though their speeds 
are less.  Competition, at its finest!  Cable is getting faster, DSL is 
getting cheaper!

Also, be warned, if your cable company does not know what it is doing 
(my seems to), cable could be less reliable than DSL.  My cable company 
happens to also own a number of dialup ISPs (Ultranet, Errols, etc) so I 
guess I am lucky.

-- 
Kevin J. Cummings
kjchome at rcn.com
cummings at kjchome.homeip.net
cummings at kjc386.framingham.ma.us