[ctt1wbw]

Holy ****, DSL is ****ing slooooooow. The place I am in Mississippi has DSL and not cable internet. This **** is ****ing slow as molasses in the wintertime. I feel like I'm back on dial up for cryin out loud. People that proclaim the goodness of DSL should be beaten. Oh, plus there's NO 3G down here at all. Oh, and the cable itself sucks.

[Dakar V]

What speed is it?

[Laminar]

It can't be too much worse than the 256k that my parents pay $45/month for.

[ctt1wbw]

Not too sure what it is rated at, but at a peak download speed I might see 1.5 megs. That will last a few seconds then it goes back down to around 400k to 600k. That's pathetic.

[Dakar V]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

It can't be too much worse than the 256k that my parents pay $45/month for.

Ahahaha. God, my latency is awful for gaming, but at least I'm getting my porn in a timely manner.

[ctt1wbw]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

It can't be too much worse than the 256k that my parents pay $45/month for.

Holy crap, that's sad. Back in Virginia with Cox, they just upped the speed. I sometimes see 8-9 megs download at a good peak. Now that's fast, I don't care who you are. I'm sure DSL is fast, or was several years ago.

[ctt1wbw]

Originally Posted by Dakar V 

Ahahaha. God, my latency is awful for gaming, but at least I'm getting my porn in a timely manner.

Now we see the light.

[Dakar V]

Originally Posted by ctt1wbw 

Now we see the light.

Uh, what?

[ghporter]

DSL is only as good as the copper pair between the central office and your wall plate. If the copper is crappy, your DSL will be crappy. My copper is new, so my DSL is great. Start bugging your phone company about how you hear static on the phone line, how you can hear other phone conversations bleeding onto your own, and how you've actually had dropped landline calls. Do NOT mention your DSL. Those problems are clues that your phone line is going (or has gone) south and they should shift you to a better pair, especially if you complain enough.

With good copper, DSL is great.

[ctt1wbw]

Originally Posted by Dakar V 

Uh, what?

The truth I meant. High speed equals more porn.

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by Dakar V 

Uh, what?

Maybe it's true what they say about going blind?

[Spheric Harlot]

You know that white stuff is brain cells, right?

[Dakar V]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

You know that white stuff is brain cells, right?

Dandruff?

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by ctt1wbw 

Holy ****, DSL is ****ing slooooooow. The place I am in Mississippi has DSL and not cable internet. This **** is ****ing slow as molasses in the wintertime. I feel like I'm back on dial up for cryin out loud. People that proclaim the goodness of DSL should be beaten. Oh, plus there's NO 3G down here at all. Oh, and the cable itself sucks.

Not the fault of DSL itself, just the connection you’re on. A classmate of mine has a 100 Mbit DSL connection. Not slow. In this part of the world, cable is far behind DSL.

[ctt1wbw]

That may be, but I think this part of the world is where Opie used to go see his dad at the police station.

[Andy8]

One of our local telcos is offering 1000M in newer buildings around town. Most of my friends in town have either 18M or 30M DSL connections. I have much less (3M) as i live in an antique building.

[iM@k]

I have 3M DSL now, and as soon as they get around to the upgrade I'm going to have 10M

[shifuimam]

It's actually REALLY freaking sad how slow Internet is in the United States compared to much of the modern world.

DSL doesn't come close to being as fast as cable here in the States.

It's just pathetic that people in HK can so easily get a 30mbit connection, when FiOS here is the only option, and it's astronomical ($70/mo for 40mbit).

[64stang06]

Originally Posted by iM@k 

I have 3M DSL now, and as soon as they get around to the upgrade I'm going to have 10M

Ditto here. Don't need cable and the speed is actually pretty decent for DSL. As much as I don't like Verizon for their mobile services, I can't complain about the DSL.

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

It's actually REALLY freaking sad how slow Internet is in the United States compared to much of the modern world.

DSL doesn't come close to being as fast as cable here in the States.

It's just pathetic that people in HK can so easily get a 30mbit connection, when FiOS here is the only option, and it's astronomical ($70/mo for 40mbit).

For the record, Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea are not really fair game, since they’re aeons ahead of everyone else. The 100 Mbit connection I mentioned earlier is only available a few select places in the capital in Denmark; everywhere else, 20 Mbit (what I have) or some places 24 Mbit is the maximum available for private residents—in any form (of connection, not resident).

[olePigeon]

DSL is not a shared connection, the speed doesn't change during or after peak hours. if you're having speed issues, it is likely due to crappy phone lines. You can call the phone company and they can test the noise/signal ratio of you phone line and possibly get it fixed for free.

The problem with cable is they'll install it in areas where it's the only type of connection you can reliably get... so everyone gets it. Then you'll wish you have DSL again.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

DSL doesn't come close to being as fast as cable here in the States.

That depends on where you live. If you live in an apartment complex and have to share your cable with 300 other people running bit torrent 24/7, cable will be slower than dial up during peak hours; sometimes just too slow to even bother trying surf the web.

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

It's just pathetic that people in HK can so easily get a 30mbit connection, when FiOS here is the only option, and it's astronomical ($70/mo for 40mbit).

Their infrastructure is new. When they started building it they went with fiber instead of copper. You can blame AT&T for f**king it up for Americans. On the condition for remerging with their former companies (all the Bells, etc.) they were supposed to upgrade their infrastructure from unshielded copper phone lines to fiber. After they merged, they lay more copper phone lines.

So while AT&T was busy screwing over tax payers, Verizon and Comcast swooped in and stole 50% of their customers.

I don't know why you're complaining about $70 for 40Mbit, unshared line. I have to pay $60/month for 10Mbit cable that's slower than dial up in the evenings and on the weekends. I'd love to have FiOS in my area.

[Maflynn]

I have Verizon DSL and for the most part I've been very happy with it. No complaints, their service has been good and performance has been good as well

[ctt1wbw]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

It's actually REALLY freaking sad how slow Internet is in the United States compared to much of the modern world.

DSL doesn't come close to being as fast as cable here in the States.

It's just pathetic that people in HK can so easily get a 30mbit connection, when FiOS here is the only option, and it's astronomical ($70/mo for 40mbit).

Tell me about it. It is sad, really. I blame the gay superhero. All he wants to do is interior decorating.

[ctt1wbw]

Originally Posted by olePigeon 

DSL is not a shared connection, the speed doesn't change during or after peak hours. if you're having speed issues, it is likely due to crappy phone lines. You can call the phone company and they can test the noise/signal ratio of you phone line and possibly get it fixed for free.

The problem with cable is they'll install it in areas where it's the only type of connection you can reliably get... so everyone gets it. Then you'll wish you have DSL again.

I can call about the phone lines. This house was remodeled not long ago, so I just assumed they did the phone lines, too.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

DSL doesn't come close to being as fast as cable here in the States.

Can you elaborate? Where are you, what speeds can you get with each (theoretical, not just "all this cruddy wire will allow"), and who are the providers?

I ask this because I get consistently better performance with my DSL line than most people I have spoken to in my area who have cable. Part of that may be that TimeWarner (evil empire) is made up of idiots and they like to treat their customers as if they're idiots too, but part of it is that the cable infrastructure (quiet well entrenched and actually quite modern) just can't handle as much as TW wants to put over it (video, VOIP, broadband, movies on demand, etc.). At least AT&T uses fiber to get their "Uverse" service (which includes all those bells and whistles) to its customers, and doesn't try to pretend that cheap RG6 will handle everything all at the same time.

[ctt1wbw]

Well, I can say that even if I had brand new lines in this house, the cable in Yorktown would still be about 10 times faster than this.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by ctt1wbw 

Well, I can say that even if I had brand new lines in this house, the cable in Yorktown would still be about 10 times faster than this.

How far are you from the central office, and what was the stated "up to" speed of the connection? And how are you sure you'd only get 1/10 the speed that cable would give you "in Yorktown?"

[ctt1wbw]

Well, the place I'm in now in Crystal Springs, Mississippi has piss poor DSL speeds. I'm talking I rarely rarely see anything over 1.5 meg download. And that might happen once or twice if I'm looking at a quicktime movie preview. Cox cable in the Hampton roads area (I still have a house near Yorktown) just bumped the speeds up. I routinely saw 6 and 7 meg download. That was with cable modem on a wifi network.

But I'm most likely going back to Virginia for a few months. We are having one helluva time with financing for this place. It fell through and the owners agreed to owner finance, but over the course of a week, the mortgage "mysteriously" has gone up from 3200 per month to 4200 per month. It's a bed and breakfast, and it just won't make that money per month.

[Cold Warrior]

Don't forget though that a lot of cable connections start out at 6 Mb and a lot of DSL starts out at 1.5 Mb. The top speeds you're seeing could just be the maximum that you or someone else has paid for at that residence.

[Trygve]

You could move to D.R. Congo and get a screaming fast 33.6kbps connection.

[Luca Rescigno]

I have Qwest standalone 7 Mbit DSL and I only pay $34/mo for it. Works great. But if I didn't have 7 Mbit available in my area, I'd go with cable.

[EndlessMac]

Originally Posted by ctt1wbw 

Holy ****, DSL is ****ing slooooooow. The place I am in Mississippi has DSL and not cable internet. This **** is ****ing slow as molasses in the wintertime. I feel like I'm back on dial up for cryin out loud. People that proclaim the goodness of DSL should be beaten. Oh, plus there's NO 3G down here at all. Oh, and the cable itself sucks.

I have the opposite experience. I used to have cable and that was slooooow. I literally had dial up speeds at times when it was peak hours. The speeds were also very inconsistent because sometimes it's fast and at other times it slow. I've had it checked out several times but the repairman just keeps saying that everything is okay. I have found that DSL is much more consistent and reliable especially when I'm watching streaming videos.

Originally Posted by olePigeon 

DSL is not a shared connection, the speed doesn't change during or after peak hours. if you're having speed issues, it is likely due to crappy phone lines. You can call the phone company and they can test the noise/signal ratio of you phone line and possibly get it fixed for free.

The problem with cable is they'll install it in areas where it's the only type of connection you can reliably get... so everyone gets it. Then you'll wish you have DSL again.

That's the biggest problem I have with cable. It can be great when almost nobody in your neighborhood has it but since cable is a shared line it gets worst when there are more people sharing it. Peak hours doesn't exist for DSL which is great because my speed is pretty constant no matter what time of day it is. I always hated avoiding peak hours with cable but when more and more of my neighbors started to get cable it seems like peak hours were almost all the time.

Both DSL and cable have their good and bad points but I'll take reliable and consistent speeds any day over the fastest advertised speeds. I also agree with the person who said that it's just sad how slow and uncommon fast broadband is here in the States. When it comes to certain technologies we are definitely behind other countries.

[iranfromthezoo]

Originally Posted by ctt1wbw 

Well, the place I'm in now in Crystal Springs, Mississippi has piss poor DSL speeds. I'm talking I rarely rarely see anything over 1.5 meg download. And that might happen once or twice if I'm looking at a quicktime movie preview. Cox cable in the Hampton roads area (I still have a house near Yorktown) just bumped the speeds up. I routinely saw 6 and 7 meg download. That was with cable modem on a wifi network.

But I'm most likely going back to Virginia for a few months. We are having one helluva time with financing for this place. It fell through and the owners agreed to owner finance, but over the course of a week, the mortgage "mysteriously" has gone up from 3200 per month to 4200 per month. It's a bed and breakfast, and it just won't make that money per month.

Hey man I am in Brandon, MS. Feel free to look me up if you come in here.

Also with the morgtage, my mom is the VP of BancorpSouth Mortgage. PM me if you need her contact info to help you make things easier.

[angelmb]

My DSL sucks as well…



and drops now and then.

[badidea]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

DSL is only as good as the copper pair between the central office and your wall plate. If the copper is crappy, your DSL will be crappy. My copper is new, so my DSL is great. Start bugging your phone company about how you hear static on the phone line, how you can hear other phone conversations bleeding onto your own, and how you've actually had dropped landline calls. Do NOT mention your DSL. Those problems are clues that your phone line is going (or has gone) south and they should shift you to a better pair, especially if you complain enough.

With good copper, DSL is great.

Quoted for the ultimate truth!

My phone company didn't care when I complained about slow DSL speeds but as soon as I complained about dropped landline calls they started to fix it and now I have wonderful 20MBit!

[ctt1wbw]

Originally Posted by Trygve 

You could move to D.R. Congo and get a screaming fast 33.6kbps connection.

I'm already packed. The Penske truck is out front.

Oh, and how's life in Dubai? I guess that's where you live, right? I've been there a few times. Beautiful city.

[ctt1wbw]

I never noticed a speed difference during peak hours with cable. Must be that in my neighborhood, not that many people have it. But everyone has cable tv, so that must affect the speed somewhat right?

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by ctt1wbw 

I never noticed a speed difference during peak hours with cable. Must be that in my neighborhood, not that many people have it. But everyone has cable tv, so that must affect the speed somewhat right?

Not in the least. TV goes on a different set of frequencies than broadband. And TV (except for the very low bandwidth requirements for "on demand" requests) is all download, with EVERYTHING going to EVERYBODY. Broadband is 2-way and thus takes a very different bite out of the available bandwidth of the broadband frequencies.

The fact that you don't see slowdowns in peak hours may be that your cable company actually configured their network correctly, with full-blown switches in the right places, instead of basically hubs at the neighborhood level. This is expensive, and not every cable provider bothers with it.

Oh, and I need to mention "tiered service" because it's been brought up above. I get over 5Mbps download because I have premium service. It's worth it to me because between my own usage, my wife's and my son's, we could easily overwhelm a lower-speed connection. We started out with basic DSL at 700-something kbps down, and have gradually moved up in service tiers. I think I spend $40/mo on this service, and it's something I have to pay attention to because this is a "promotional rate" that I need to actively subscribe to before my contract expiration date...

[ctt1wbw]

...and then they rake you over the coals after the "promotional" rate expires.