Choosing soon between DSL and Cable...suggestions?

[jdwright]

My main concern is that i will have SMOOTH online gaming...both quake3 and things like everquest. Recently i've heard some people saying that DSL is much more consistent for that type of application.

I also enjoy speedy downloads...and do quite a bit of it. It is also important to me.

I guess i would like to know the difference in consistent download speeds between say a 256k dsl and a typical cable connection...btw i will be using charter communications for cable (brand new system in town...supposed to be one of the first of its kind...leave it to Paul Allen). Will that make a difference?

Am i going to be disappointed with my connection for downloading if i go with DSL?

Bah...too much to think about 8)

Thanks in advance for any advice

 

[rominl]

i heard that DSL has a shorter ping time, which is more important for online gaming.

cable modem in general has a faster d/l speed.

and hmm.... 256k for DSL seems a bit slow IMO.

 

[roc919]

If I had a choice I would go with DSL b/c cable is shared during prime time and is noticable. However, I can get multisession downloads at about 40KB each.

But ultimately, it is really up to the infrastructure and the number of users in your neighborhood on your pipe when it comes to cable--you really need to try it out to know.

 

[jdwright]

I've also heard that rominl...something to do with the variance in pings. Apparently cable has a wider variance in pings...resulting in sometimes choppy game performance.

I'll be either one would be WAY better than my 24k (my phone line sux) connection right now 8)

 

[Insomnium]

Before you choose DSL or Cable you should consider your neighborhood and whether or not a lot of people will be signing up for cable. Cable is easy to install and if it is hyped up enough (like it is where i live), there will be hundreds of people signing up in no time. If this is the case, avoid cable at all costs, cuz Prime usage will result in terrible pings and download speeds. If that's not the case, then cable isn't a bad choice. I personally would rather go with DSL though because it tends to give you a smoother connection.

 

[HollowWorm]

I'm in the same boat. Well I got cable only because it was avaiable in my area first but I also can get DSL now. The cable is Charter Pipline(Charter Communiations). You from Knoxville? If so the cable access is really really bad right now. I can barely get 100kbps. Ack slower than my ISDN. My pings are over 200 almost always. They said they well have the upgrades done my the beginning of the year and things should get much better. I'm not sure I beleave that though. However ADSL can be pretty bad to. It depends on your distance from the Central Office and your ISP. I do live close to the CO so I'll probably which to ADSL. I still have not figured out who to choose as a ISP.

 

[Fugifighter]

Back in november i did a debate between cable modem and DSL and i had the cable modem side so forgive me if i sound a little bias. Thru the research i found that there's alot of factors you can argue for both sides. for DSL, there's the factor of Cost. you gotta pay for the dsl and then for the ISP as well. there are also distance restrictions that you must be close to a Telco switch. with DSL you will not be able to use a fax machine because they use the same frequency ranges. some ppl may not know that DSL also has a shared medium. The line frm the Phone company central office to the internet is a shared line for everyone. Extra IPs cost way more for DSL than cable.
For cable, there is the deal about security and a shared medium. other people on cable modem will be able to see your computer but you can run a firewall or something. as for the shared medium. if alot of people in your neighbor hood have cable modem you will be sharing that bandwidth with them. So it would slow down during peak times.
So basically the difference i see in dsl and cable modem is that with DSL you have a constant bandwidth which is not terribly slow but not very fast either, and with cable you have a gamble for speed but you get mostly higher bandwidth than DSL.
what roc919 said is tru, it all depends on the type of infrastructure you have in your neighborhood. do u know any neighbors that have DSL or cable installed? you could try asking them how their connection is.

 

[Nemi]

I have 374/274 DSL and actually only get about 225 down cause I am right at the distance limit from the nearest switch. I have played online games for a long time and am in the #1 TFC clan currently playing (Shameless plug), San Dawgs. I am very pleased with my connection. Is there times I wish I had faster DL speeds? Sure. I may only get 225 down, but I always get 225 down, if you know what I mean.

I have known many people that have had both DSL and Cable and the informal consensus is that DSL is preferred over Cable simply because of the more consistant connection it provides. I know people that actually have both. They use DSL to play and Cable to surf. That seems to be the gist of it.

 

[Nemi]

What Fugi said is true except for one thing. He says that static IP's for DSL are way more than Cable. It actually depends on your providers. I had one DSL provider that gave me extra IP's for free. My current one charges $10 a month for a block of 5. Lastly, the new Cable company is advertising Cable service in town and I saw that extra IP's are $10 each a month! Wow. So you see, it all depends.

 

[jdwright]

As far as the neighborhood, its VERY residential and middle class. Could be quite a few people getting cable, but i'm not sure of that.

The cable system that is coming in is brand new...should be available very soon. They are saying that it is going to be among the best cable systems in the country. (i live in Yakima, WA...sprawling metropolis) Was hoping someone knew a bit about Charter and the new system 8)

Part of the problem is that DSL here is slow and expensive ($60-80), while the cable promises to be VERY fast and cheap ($40/mo).

Difficult decision 8(

 

[johnlog]

I have PacBell basic DSL in Los Angeles. It usually works OK and I log in with no problems.

But, like today, I cannot log onto PacBell's own home page. It just plain does not answer or come on screen. I can log onto DSL Reports and Anandtech quickly plus I can log onto most other web sites. Some others won't come on at all.

This is the first time in almost a month since I had a problem with DSL logging onto web sites.

When it works DSL is great but the big lie is that DSL does not slow down. It does slow down. Maybe not as badly as cable modem does but it still slows down. Much of that depends on internet traffic though.

PacBell uses Cisco UNIX systems and servers so that is most likely where the problems arise from. Cisco servers have been known to be reliable but all of a sudden for no apparent reason those servers will crash.

Maybe that is why I can only log onto a few URLs today. I don't know for certain.

JohnL :|

 

[Nemi]

jd, you didn't say there was so much of a price difference. At that price, I wouldn't hesitate to try the cable. Unless of course you have money burning a hole in your pocket. They both will provide 100 times better, more reliable and faster service than an analog modem.

And Johnlog, Your DSL line never slows down. The pipe at your ISP may get congested. The backbones of the internet may get congested. But the line from your house to the telco should always stay the same. That is not the case with Cable. Small but important difference.

 

[Muadib]

Part of the problem is that DSL here is slow and expensive ($60-80), while the cable promises to be VERY fast and cheap ($40/mo).
Yikes!!! That's quite a price swing. It would be a no brainer for me, but I'm cheap like that. Here in the NJ/NYC area both are free for the first month. I would get cable first, and if it sucks, dump it and go dsl. If you game online with 56k now, I can't see you unhappy with either choice.

 

[hungrypete]

just ordered me a 384k-1.5m (orsomething very close to that) DSL and got free equipent (modem, nic, splitters, filters) here in southwest MO. $40 a month is depressing but hopefully I can game now.... kiss that 300 ping goodbye

OT question regarding cable, does someone watching TV affect your cable connection? I live in the slums, so to speak, and i KNOW all the welfare losers sit and watch thier cable all day, and that very few of them have computers, so does that get figured into the badwidth sharing?

 

[Neoplasia]

Get DSL. It shouldn't be a whole lot more per month than a dial-up, but I guess that depends on your ISP. The guaranteed bandwidth is really nice. I know a number of people with Cable (or ex-Cable users), frequent outages etc. Not to say that's how it is for all providers of it just some things I've heard. I've got 1Meg DSL and it's fantastic.

 

[Fireman]

Just my $.02 here. You need to research the companies in your area. Not all cable or DSL systems are created equal. The cable/DSL system where I am at may be much faster or slower than yours. Consumers reports did an article a while back and the diffs were amazing.

 

[Poof]

I currently have a cable modem and have had it for almost 2 years. I've live in a very upscale neighborhood (thus expect that alot of folks have PCs) and have yet to experience any "slow down" due to those on my link. Why? Because my cableco invested in the infrastructure.

hungrypete - the signals (frequencies) for cable TV are different from that used for data so crosstalk, etc, is not an issue.

Also, although I agree that there's alot of variability (eg., amount of money spent by the provider on the infrastructure like fiber, etc.) involved from provider to provider, I think the slowdown myth regarding cable needs to go away... I say this in terms of the fact that the connection from the residence to the head end is basically no different than the office LAN that many of you use. Thus, except for that portion from residence to head end, there's no difference between DSL and cable regarding bandwidth "sharing". If you have DSL and live across the street from the switch then you supposedly have a "dedicated" line for what? A couple hundred feet? Big deal. The internet is one big shared series of pipes and DSL subscribers hit the same "shared" pipe from the switch out like cable subscribers do from the head end out...

All you can really do is ask around your area to see what others have and how their connections/customer service have been. You might have a great DSL connection but sucky service if there's an outage. Same goes for cable. You may have a cable provider trying to run service over 30 year old cable lines or a DSL provider getting ripped off by Verizon... it all depends.

 

[abracadabra1]

i aggree w/ fireman
then again, my opinion is probably not all that important to you considering i can't spell agree correctly
check out the companies in your area, ask people that have the services you have interest in and that live relatively close to you.

i have dsl (256K/1.5MB) w/ bellsouth. it's the best thing that ever happened to me. i have had the service for over 2 years now and have had only 1 week of downtime and that was the first we of service. i have not had not even 1 minute downtime (that i've noticed) in 2 years of service! interesting to note however, other people in my area can't get more than 2 weeks of service w/o having days of disruption. another thing that's kind of funny is that i live at 15,000+ ft from the DSLAM- out of distance for ADSl (but i get d/l as high as 167KB/s)

i used to have cable w/ adelphia. it was terrible. downloads/uploads were amazing- 400KB/s easy. but pings and stability were terrible.

so all in all, i love dsl, hate cable but the choice is really dependent on the services offered in your area.

GL!

 

[Howard]

For me, cable had gaming pings of roughly 20-50ms on a good server, and DSL, 70-100ms.

Cable downloaded a lot faster than DSL too, about 200K, but for web browsing, cable was noticeably slower than DSL, but not by much.

 

[oreoafk]

Ask your neigbors about their opionions and experiences...

 

[Orbius]

There is no noticeable difference between a good cable connection and a dsl connection for gaming.
I can find servers in the 30ms ping range, DSL could be faster I suppose but I dont see how. Anyway once you get below 75 ping, it's all the same, the thing that will slow you down the most at that point is the server itself, and all the other people on there.

In your situation the Cable connection is the way to go, 256k dsl is slow.

 

[formulav8]

Dsl is slow compared to cable. DSL doesn't even come close to the speeds I get with cable.

 

[damac]

through personal experience I would go dsl all the way. I never had my dsl connection fluctuate in speeds and ping as much as my cable during certain times of the day. Ive had my @home cable in sac, ca. now for 3 months and its so crappy that I would do anything to get dsl but its not available here, and when its fast it is better than an dialup.

and like has been said its a city to city type thing, with cable even neighborhood to neighborhood, but my opinion is the cable technology is more flawed by design. true all providers must have the bandwidth at their hub to allow people on the net but I believe the way cable works it has the potential to slow down more with heavy use.

its so bad here that I would call the @home flyers and tv promos lies when they talk about stability, speeds 40+times faster than a dialup, etc. Im constantly getting slowdowns during peak periods of the day and @home admits it to me on the phone and does nothing. If it isn't the technology why wouldn't they upgrade their bandwidth after 3 months?

 

[TheOverlord]

i use DSL and it has been fairly good to me so far...

downs:
- had a 2.5 week period with no dsl and tech support didnt have a clue what was wrong (idiots told me to reboot, when id tried that 5 times before calling)
- tech support sucks
- once or twice in the 7 months ive had it something was screwed up and i had slower than 56k connection
- tech support sucks
- only 128kbps upload (bad for home servers)
- dynamic IP
- tech support sucks the big one (i have SWbell)

good:
- consistently low ping on TFC, even on laggy servers i stay below 200, most servers im about 100 and on good servers i get round 40-50 (and thats running win98 with no optimizations)
- i can get the full 1.5mbps down if the site im connecting to has good response, great for downloading those 100mb+ game demos
- i often have to wait on sites to load only because that site is slow, rarely if ever is my connection at fault
- low pings in TFC
- sites load all at once no waiting on graphics or flash animations to load
- streaming media (movie trailers, radio, etc with no hiccups)

So overall I'd haave to say DSL is a good buy if you can get a decent provider and up/down speeds. Read DSLreports.com to find out how your provider is ranked. I plan to get an SDSL connection when its available to me (Mar. 01) so i can have 1 mbps both ways for my home servers (static IP too). Don't know much about cable but since its shared be ready to lose bandwidth at peak times...also some cable compaines only have 1 T1 line out of their office so the entire town has to share that T1 if the particular page isn't cached in their server. That said some have great setups so you get 3mbps both way almost all the time. Best thing to do is visit sites reviewing providers and with info on your area and keep talkin to folks about it. Whatever you do once you get broadband you'll never go back...

 

[Virtus]

I use a cable connection and I've never experienced slow down, but I figure that that's because of a fairly small user base here in Montana. We don't have DSL available where i live.

One important thing to consider, my cable company offers two different cable packages - 128/128 for $24.95/month and 128/max for $39.95. I've got the unlimited access and my parents on the other side of town have the 128/128 since they don't want to mess with POTS connections and they don't do anything that uses high bandwidth. Their connection is fast enough to do Netmeeting video calls with my sister in Hawaii.

We'll see how long our local cable company can keep the bandwidth from being bogged down by too many users....

$25 a month for an always on, relatively quick connection sounds like a death blow for 56k POTS modems!