Are high speed internet modem cables worth buying?

[crrdsh]

Has anyone bought a Belkin high speed internet modem cable or an equivalent? Is there a noticable performance difference?

[edit 01] I'm currently using dial-up.
[edit 02] Sorry for any confusion. The cable in question is strictly for dial-up use.

 

[Woody419]

Download and upload speeds are usually set by your ISP based on how much you pay per month. Are you on a dialup or DSL? Changing the last 7 feet of your wiring will not increase your speed "Up to 10 times faster than a regular phone cable" no matter what the ad copy says.

There are many speed test sites on the internet. The best time to check your speed is when everyone else is not, like 3:30 am. If you are not getting what you paid for in speed then I would think the problem lies elsewhere and not in the last 7 feet.
BrowserTune 2000 is a good place to start.

 

[nick1985]

you will feel like your in heaven

 

[logers]

If you have a standard phone cable that's in good condition you will not get a single extra drop of bandwidth out of the high speed cable. I had a 50' cable that was chewed up that connected my computer to the phone jack across the apartment in college. Replacing *that* to high quality cable brought my connection speed up considerably.

The truth is that 7' length of any cable in good condition is going to be exactly the same. As the length increases so does the attenuation and at longer lengths a higher quality cable would be benefitial.

That being said, it is never a bad idea to invest in your cables IMHO. This one is going to withstand a much greater beating then the el cheapo $0.10 phone cables and you'll have peace of mind.

 

[zephyrprime]

you will feel like your in heaven

He means a cable for a 56k modem, not a cable modem.

The cables you speak of are worthless. Keep in mind this: do you think the phone company bothers with fancy cabling? Even with a fancy belkin cable, you still be running with 1 mile of 50 yr old phone company cables. Plus, you probably have a few dozen feet of cat 3 cable between you and the junction box on your house.

 

[Whitedog]

Uhmmm...

no

Total waste of money...

 

[Brian48]

As long as your cable company provides you with a cable modem of reasonable quality and they're not charging you an arm and leg to lease the hardware, I wouldn't bother.

My cable company is charging me about $4 to rent my Toshiba, which retails for about $100+. My first 6 months were free so by the time I would have used the modem enough times to make it worth my while to purchase my own, I'd have probably moved onto another vendor.

 

[Bojangles139]

again, he's talking about cat5 cable, not cable modem. cat5 is cat5 is cat5. as long as you get good connection, as in the plug in is not loose, your good to go. if you refer to this

stick with what you have and save the money

, pretty sure they are talking about going from phone modem to cable modem and just tricky speaking advertisement to sell something. stick with what you got, it doesn't matter. hell, a friend and i just buy cat5 spools and make'em ourselves, can't beat 10 bux for 100 feet of cat5.

brandon

 

[Ilmater]

Originally posted by: Bojangles139
can't beat 10 bux for 100 feet of cat5.

I can. $9.95 for a 100ft cable without the hassle of connecting it at Micro Center here in Kansas City.

 

[rudder]

waste o' money. I've used the sloppiest wiring at times when I was installing a new phone jack. Even plain old phone cable is more than enough to max out my 56K modem. I have seen these at walmart. The packaging makes it look like if you buy this cable your modem will go from 56K to 1.5mbit. Keep your money.

Edit: Just looked at your product link.

Category 5 structured cable transmits data up to 100 Mbits/sec. This part is true.... because the cable is basically cat5 which can do those speeds, but it won't help your modem go any faster.