What is better: Cable or DSL?
Name: Kraig Henderson
Hello, my family and I have just moved to a new neighborhood and are shopping around for a new ISP. Dial-Up is not an option because it’s too slow. Qwest offers DSL in our area and there is Comcast offering cable. I have heard bad things about both cable and DSL broadband and so I was hoping that you could shed a little light on the subject.
The type of connection that I recommend that you get is… Secret option C: A fiber optic line. Sadly, this is almost certainly not an option for you unless you just happen to live in Utah and are in one of the cities involved in the UTOPIA Project. If you do happen to live within it’s reach, then stop reading this article, because I hate you.
But, if you’re like the rest of us then you have to choose between just a couple of different services which are most likely mediocre at best.
While I usually lean towards cable as my main broadband connection of choice, the service that you choose is really dependent upon the area in which you live. The first consideration is bandwidth. What speeds are each of the companies offering you? With cable, assuming you’re in a metropolitan area, you should be able to get at least 6 Mbps out of it. With DSL you can expect about the same. This does not mean that Qwest or Comcast will necessarily offer you lines that fast, but it should be possible.
Also keep in mind that the speed you’re paying for is not always what its real-world performance turns out being. Depending on the quality of the lines in your area, how far you are away from the nearest CO in the case of DSL, the quality of the lines within your house, as well as the sheer number of people connected to the same subnet, your actual speed could be much lower than what your bill says you should be getting.
Be sure to check out what each offer has in regards to upstream bandwidth. Upstream bandwidth is just as important as downstream. While you shouldn’t need as much bandwidth up as you do down, you will need a decent amount. If any of your family members start uploading a bunch of data (using Bittorrent, uploading photos to MySpace, etc) and consume all of your outgoing bandwidth then nothing coming in will work either. When downloading a file or webpage your computer has to send out requests for additional data once the first requests are completed. Assuming all of the upstream is taken then those requests can’t be sent, which means that you’re not going to be downloading jack.
Before you make a decision I would ask your close neighbors what type of connection they have and how the service has been. The quality of service between DSL and cable can vary wildly from area to area. I had Charter cable in my previous town and it was not nearly as reliable as Comcast has been in my new place. DSL can be the same way.
One thing to watch out for with DSL would be hidden costs associated with it. It’s nice that they may be offering you a screamingly fast connection for $30 a month, but more than likely there are a bunch of other fees that go along with it. You’ll likely have to pay for the phone line itself each month, and then there’s regular service charges, they’ll probably try to tack on a regular voice phone line along with that. (Nearly everybody that I know uses cellphones almost exclusively. Personally I’ve not had a hardwired phone line since 2003) Before you know it your $30 internet is actually costing you $60 per month.
I suppose the gist of the article is this: Choose whichever service will be the most reliable in your area. It is well worth giving up a couple of Mbps for a steady, reliable connection.
Regarding dial-up, I completely agree. It’s 2008 now, not 1050 BC. I don’t hammer things into stone tablets to relay information. If you’re on dial-up and have another service available to you then it’s time to upgrade. You’re past due.
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I tend to agree with the first answer – depends. However I have found Verizon to be MUCH more reliable than Comcast Cable ever was. Despite the 1/2 speed difference the service is seamless. If I was pushing a lot of image files up to some site, I would miss the extra 3 mbps but other than that, I never see even the slightest delay in my Internet usage.
The fact that Comcast tends to abuse their customers, at least anyone with a problem in my state, is reason enough to find another solution. I even considered satellite for my Internet connection versus Comcast, but it was cost prohibitive.
Distance from the Central Office will impact bandwidth from DSL, but that compared to garbage service from Comcast seems to be mitigated pretty easily.
Hope that helps. Yes, if you can get FiOS, Take it!!! Totally agree with answer C!!!
Comcast does have higher bandwith but it does tend to cost a little more. I myslef have DSL from qwest and do a ton of downloading. In my area there are not a ton of DSL users so my speed is fast.
Both Comcast and Qwest DSL have Mcafee for free. There are difference in this.
Comcast Mcafee: Virus, Spyware, firewall, personal security, data backup features
Qwest Mcafee: Virus, Firewall, personal security. They do however offer spysweeper from webroot as there spyware program.
Just something else to keep in mind
according to me if you want consistance speed dsl is best but cable is much cheaper it is most widely use d in local cyber cafes and the speed depends on user s less user more speed there is hack in cable to get higher speed but it not work on dsl
i m connecting through DSL connection ,,,, its showing me that computer is connected to network…. But internet explorer is showing “page cannot be displayed “, even after making all connection setting
I’ve used them both and continue to use cable (Comcast) because of it superior bandwidth on the download side. It is MUCH more costly, though. Time will tell if AT&T and/or Verizon will make it to my area with fiber. That will be a game-changer.
Exactly how much faster is cable over phone lines???
@Darroll:
There is no ‘exactly.’ Download/upload speed is determined by a number of factors, and there are other issues than speed, like reliability, as mentioned above. Both cable and DSL are generally much faster than dialup, but beyond that it all depends on your location, available infrastructure, the number of users making requests (primarily a cable issue), and your provider.
You also may not have a choice. DSL generally requires that you live within several miles of a CO (providing phone company’s Central Office) to get adequate quality of service, where cable companies can install the necessary cabling for you. If you’re in one of those rare but existing areas where you can get neither DSL nor cable, you’re stuck with either satellite or dialup.