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Peter753 · Mar 1, 2003, 10:31 PM

I'v had DSL for a while now. I was satified with the speed, i'd get about 90kb/s on a good download. This weekend i went to a friends house to help set up his cable internet network and was shocked to see that he was getting speeds of as much as 550kb/s. Is cable really that much faster?

PreciousBbird · Mar 1, 2003, 11:34 PM

I never have had DSL, but I am really pleased with my cable speed of 1549 kbps. I have heard that it is faster and I couldn't get DSL, so I got this.

To test my speed I went to http://www.dslreports.com, a site I read about on this forum. They have reports there, maybe you can compare your speed with others in your area and maybe even figure out how to tweak your DSL to make it faster. Enjoy!

ghporter · Mar 2, 2003, 09:22 AM

Originally posted by Peter753:
I'v had DSL for a while now. I was satified with the speed, i'd get about 90kb/s on a good download. This weekend i went to a friends house to help set up his cable internet network and was shocked to see that he was getting speeds of as much as 550kb/s. Is cable really that much faster?

The answer truly is "that depends." The trouble with cable is that the network configuration is subject to market pressures-your DSL line goes straight between you and a very large scale concentrator, while a cable connection has multiple branching possibilities between you and the concentrator. The bottom line is that a cable provider can configure things so that when you get home and log on, your speed is terrible because all of your neighbors are getting home and logging on. It's sort of a high speed analog to when everybody had the same dial-up ISP and you got busy signals.

I get about 1100-1200kbps with my DSL connection, and I only really notice downloads that are larger than 2-3MB.

aaanorton · Mar 2, 2003, 11:26 AM

Originally posted by GHPorter:
The answer truly is "that depends." The trouble with cable is that the network configuration is subject to market pressures-your DSL line goes straight between you and a very large scale concentrator, while a cable connection has multiple branching possibilities between you and the concentrator.

While this is definitely the case, I don't think it is really such a problem any more. When cable internet was first deployed, things could really suck. Since then, though, it's safe to say that cable companies have been beefing up their networks, just like everybody else. I've had cable for about 3-4 yrs now and regularly (even at peak evening times) get results like this from DSLReports:

2003-03-02 12:17:11 EST: 2091 / 366
Your download speed : 2091198 bps, or 2091 kbps.
A 255.2 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 366333 bps, or 366 kbps.
Seems like broadband .. above the 1mbit barrier!

This is on my iBook wirelessly connected to my Asante 802.11b router downstairs. Given the choice, I'd never go DSL over cable, but that's just my me.

chabig · Mar 2, 2003, 11:27 AM

Yes, with cable you share the bandwidth with your neighbors. The phone company will use that as an argument against cable. But even with DSL, you share the bandwidth upstream of the concentrator. So I think it's a phony argument.

Usually DSL provides a guaranteed bandwidth, but no more. They want you to pay more for higher levels of service. Personally, if I had the choice, I would rather have the cable company's full bandwidth (but with no guarantee) over the phone company's smaller (but guaranteed) bandwidth.

Chris

Peter753 · Mar 2, 2003, 01:00 PM

Thanks for the replies. Does my DSL service just suck or something? GHPorter gets many times more bandwidth than I do.

chabig · Mar 2, 2003, 02:20 PM

Originally posted by Peter753:
Does my DSL service just suck or something?

Your provider is probably just giving you what you pay for. Or perhaps your DSL bandwidth is limited by your distance from the phone company's central office.

dampeoples · Mar 2, 2003, 02:23 PM

I think cable can be way faster as stated above, but I'd rather pay 10-15 less a month and get slower DSL if that were available.

SirCastor · Mar 2, 2003, 02:54 PM

I pay just short of $50 a month for my Cable, I have never been dissatisfied.

The only downside to cable from DSL would be your bandwidth going down when your neighbors plug in. This was never an issue for me, because my neighborhood is double banded. Twice as many folks could hook up before we saw a difference.

Cable only offers one consumer package, and that's the best they've got before you go to 'business'. They really only cap the upload, and that's to prevent people from running servers. (little frustrating, but oh well)
DSL on the other hand sells packages to the point where you'd end up paying more for the higher throughput. If you get a separate ISP with your DSL, you've got two companies and you're usually looking at about $60 all-together.

The choice was easy for me. I checked my speed, I run at about 1700 kbps down

I Bent My Wookiee · Mar 2, 2003, 03:36 PM

I get 300k sec down 90k sec up on my DSL and the speed is always the same.

Peter753 · Mar 2, 2003, 03:56 PM

I also pay $60 a month and only get 110kb/s downstream max, and 20 kb/s upstream. It seems my DSL is a whole lot slower than other peoples. BTW these speeds are what I actualy get on downloads, not what the tests show.

DeathMan · Mar 2, 2003, 04:02 PM

Broadband in my zone is weak.

I'm getting 768kbs right now with my cable provider, but my bill just went from $40 to $70 without sending me even a notice that it was going up, so I'm dropping it as soon as I can figure out how to get out of the $200 connection fee they want to set up my DSL.

Broadband is supposed to be cheap by now.

Are you sure you're only getting 90kb/s (kilobits)? and not 90KB/s(kilobytes). That's what I'm getting with cable and its roughly 768kbp/s (a common connection speed for DSL)

I wouldn't pay DSL prices to get 90kbs a second, thats not even isdn speeds.

IF your getting 90kbs your dsl sucks, yes. if its 90KB/s you'r getting better speeds than your friend.

Peter753 · Mar 2, 2003, 04:18 PM

I mean Kilobytes. Sorry for the confusion.
I am getting about 90-110 kilobytes/sec fastest with my DSL while he is getting as much as 550kilobytes/sec with his new cable.

rlotz · Mar 3, 2003, 03:01 AM

Typicaly cable is faster than DSL at the same price. However, cable might not be for you depending on what you do with your service.

Personally, I come from a Unix background so I've got multiple servers and stream MP3s from home. So I'm paying ~$150/month for a 640Kbps symetric DSL (DSL line + business class service). In my experience cable (at least in the Seattle area) is way more flakey than DSL.

But, for the average home consumer cable is going to be a better deal.

aaanorton · Mar 3, 2003, 02:18 PM

Originally posted by rlotz:
In my experience cable (at least in the Seattle area) is way more flakey than DSL.

I definitely see exactly the opposite here in So Cal. In all the time I've had my cable service (3-4 yrs), I've not had a usable connection only half a dozen times. The worst outage was for a couple hours and I think I got credited for that whole month. The other times it was like 20 minutes or so. No biggie.