DSL or Cable? Need unbiased info on difference

[C6H6]

I have cable now, enjoy it. The phone company has just dropped the price of DSL to the same as cable. I have heard many people give their OPINIONS about which is faster. Usually their answer just happens to be the same as what they are hooked up to. Brand loyalty or something? So, what's the story?

 

[CStroman]

Cable speeds can vary with your location; they'd be slower in crowded areas like cities and faster in places like suburbs. DSL speeds are fairly constant regardless of your location.

 

[samgau]

I have had both... and i have to say that cable was good to me... i had a higher bandwidth (3.2 Mbit down) than DSL (1.4 Mbits down). . but at the time i had it . . there were very few people living around me that had access to it... I hear that cable has a higher hit when you increase the number of people using in the same neighborhood ... than dsl.. cause dsl is not shared between you and eveybody else on the block... well its not shared the same way anyway... its a bit like a hub and a switch... cable = hub, dsl = switch... so if you already have cable and the bandwidth you are getting is higher than dsl.. then stick with cable . . if your bandwidth is suck and dsl is cheaper then go with dsl...

hope that helps..

 

[yomega]

Cable modems have a higher peak speed, but the toatl bandwidth is shared by everyone in your area, so if alot of people are on the net, then your connection will suffer. DSL on the other hand, has a more or less consistant transfer rate, but your speed is dependent on how far you live from your ISP's routers.
,
You can also search for this on the net, places like CNET and such. Here is a comparison from CNET, Likny.

 

[Lord Evermore]

In case people that always mention cable being "shared", the entire Internet is "shared" bandwidth, including your DSL bandwidth. All that cable does is move the point that you start sharing somewhat closer to you, and even that depends on the exact configuration of a cable provider's network.

DSL into a provider without enough bandwidth outbound would be just as slow as a cable connection with a lot of people in the neighborhood on it.

 

[Mustanggt]

Dont you need a ISP separate from your DSL to be connected? witch adds to the cost?

 

[Woody419]

DSL Reports is a good place to start. I have Qwest.net and currently test at 509 kbs down, 224 up. Downloads from a good site are usually around 630 kbs, always steady, its the general net traffic that slows me down. Cable and satellite can vary greatly. I was at a clients house yesterday and his Pegasus Express satellite service around noon was at 112 kbs, only twice as fast as a dialup at premium broadband prices.

The Qwest.net ISP recently migrated everyone to msn.com, new e-mail addresses for everyone! I pay:
$31.95/month for the DSL/phone line
$17.95/month to MSN
$13.61/month residential phone line
$15.54/month misc. fees (access charges & taxes)

TOTAL cost $79.05

Compare cable + phone costs vs DSL + phone costs to see what you would pay each month, that might make your decision for you.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Generally whoever you get your DSL through is your ISP. You don't order the DSL then choose an ISP. However it is possible to do it that way. If you go through your phone company, they're usually your ISP as well.

Due to technical limits though, you can't just choose any ISP there is an use your DSL with them (I suppose you COULD, but it'd probably kill performance due to network design). Your ISP has to be interconnected with the DSL provider in order to bridge the traffic to them. When you get DSL, technically you pass through a "dark" network through the DSL provider's routers and switches (ATM switches), and then they pass the traffic over to your ISP's IP network. The DSL provider ignores your IP information and uses the underlying ATM configuration to know where to route your traffic. Then your ISP has to have a transit to the provider to get the actual traffic to them.

Covad is one of the few remaining national providers of DSL, and they're just barely hanging on. Almost all ISP's that provide DSL service use Covad for the actual DSL service. Then most of the phone companies also provide their own DSL service. So in this manner, you can choose to have Covad DSL, and go to their site and choose which ISP has the services and pricing that suit you best, but you have to choose one from that list.

The pricing for telco provided DSL service includes ISP service, and while the prices are as low as cable, the speeds are not usually anywhere near as high for the same price. (There are some, but not many.)

Obviously right now with cable, you have to use the cable company's ISP service. (In the case of @Home customers, @Home was the provider that the individual cable providers used, it wasn't like you had any choice.) This is what the cable companies are being fought on; some people want their networks to be opened up so that any ISP could get a contract like ISP's get for DSL, so that they can provide service using customer's cable connections.

 

[RemyCanad]

Some one said that DSL is shared. That is not true. There is no moving up stream of the the sharing. You get the speed that you pay for (to a point, line quality distance. are other factors are in your way). Its like a dial-up modem in the way that it works. You get a dedicated connection through a piece of there t-1 for example. And no one else can use your piece of that t-1while your connected it is not shared. It's kinda like getting some of the channels of a t-1. Now you might be saying that that anyone that has dsl access will not be using a t-1 for there backbone. That is very true, there is not enough bandwidth to cover many connections. But the high speed options like SONET and so on are not bus topologies. They are more token ring like. They do not loose speed by more people joining the network, you get the actual speed.

Cable on the other had is slowed down because you are all using the same pipe to get to the ISP. The theoretical max speed of the pipes are about 36mbps downstream and 10mbps up stream. Realistically its about 3-10 down and 2 up. And that's the total pipe to all the houses. They all of the houses use the same pipe so the bandwidth is limited again.

I believe that Cable would is faster as long as you don't have too many people on it. The only problem with it is that it is not secure. Everyone on that pipe are kinda like on the same hub. People can access your computer very easily. So you will almost have to have a firewall of some sorts.

I would recommend well I just don't know. As long as the prices are the same and you are satisfied with your provider I say let it be. Now its more dependent on if your provider is reliable than anything else.

 

[TwilightZone77]

<< I have cable now, enjoy it. The phone company has just dropped the price of DSL to the same as cable. I have heard many people give their OPINIONS about which is faster. Usually their answer just happens to be the same as what they are hooked up to. Brand loyalty or something? So, what's the story? >>



If you already have cable and am happy with it, I wouldn't bother changing to DSL. You'd have to buy a new modem, possibly have setup charges, etc. And installation delays are possible-- some/many DSL companies are notorius for not setting up the service on time. The speed of cable vs. DSL varies depending on your area, but I'd say cable definitely has the potential to be faster. Cable can be 3 mbps to 5 mbps if you're lucky, and it isn't usually less than 1.5 mpbs-- but it depends on your area. DSL pretty much caps out at 1.2-1.5 mpbs, it doesn't really get any higher. DSL does usually have a higher upload rate than cable, though.

 

[ojai00]

<<

<< I have cable now, enjoy it. The phone company has just dropped the price of DSL to the same as cable. I have heard many people give their OPINIONS about which is faster. Usually their answer just happens to be the same as what they are hooked up to. Brand loyalty or something? So, what's the story? >>


If you already have cable and am happy with it, I wouldn't bother changing to DSL. You'd have to buy a new modem, possibly have setup charges, etc. And installation delays are possible-- some/many DSL companies are notorius for not setting up the service on time. The speed of cable vs. DSL varies depending on your area, but I'd say cable definitely has the potential to be faster. Cable can be 3 mbps to 5 mbps if you're lucky, and it isn't usually less than 1.5 mpbs-- but it depends on your area. DSL pretty much caps out at 1.2-1.5 mpbs, it doesn't really get any higher. DSL does usually have a higher upload rate than cable, though. >>


Yes, TwilightZone77 makes a very good point. I've had experience with both types of services, and I'm very happy with my cable modem. I got set up in a matter of days, as opposed to a matter of months with DSL. Cable is generally faster than DSL, but like the other guys said, the bandwith is shared among the other subscribers in the neighborhood. I'm lucky to have cable modem service in the projects, where I doubt a lot of people will have...so I'm basically getting almost 2MB all the time. A year or two ago, there were a lot of DSL companies going out of business because DSL providers went bankrupt (Northpoint, etc.) I think Covad is the only one that exists now, and even they're on the verge of going bankrupt. My opinion, stick with cable. Hope this helps.

 

[dejacky]

i've had both TimeWarner RoadRunner DSL & Earthlink/Mindspring Adsl (1.5/384). The difference for me was negligible because I was within ~5000ft from my telco(for dsl) & my cable connection was in a suburban area(less people). Both connections were extremely fast & had low latency. My dsl connection seemed to have slightly lower ping in online games, but only becuase I was so close to my telco. The farther you are from your telco, the higher your latency will be. Overall, both connections for me were equally fast. Also, your ISP determines how ur connection to the internet performs. In general, cable connections are easier to setup since u don't need technicians coming to u'r residence to see if your "dsl approved." That's the unbiased "skinny."

-dejacky

 

[Lord Evermore]

RemyCanad: I said it, I'm right, and I'm a network engineer.

Here's how cable works:

Cable to the central node has something like a 30Mbps bandwidth.

Cable man hooks your house up, runs a line out to the pole. A bunch of other people nearby run on that same pole, but I'm pretty sure the sharing doesn't start there, you run on different frequencies. From there you go to the node for the area (may be a node on every street for high-population-density areas, but usually something like a neighborhood or a block). At the node, you pass onto the shared connection back to the central routers/servers/concentrator/hub. This is where you start sharing bandwidth. The node has only 30Mbps back to the central hub (assuming only one line goes to the node).

So, say 50 people in the neighborhood have cable internet service (depends on the area of course, but keep in mind apartment buildings often have contracted service so you don't end up with an entire apartment building running to the same node as everyone else). Give them a 1.5Mbps downstream cap. Obviously, they have 75Mbps of bandwidth on the local line to the node, but then the node only has 30Mbps outbound to the network. So, they start sharing that 30Mbps right there.

However, ALL service providers work on an "oversell" basis (both in their backbone bandwidth and in their next-to-last-mile bandwidth). Sometimes as high as 10 to 1 (especially for dialup). This means they sell more connections than they have the capability to handle at once. For dialup, that means they have 1 modem for every 10 customers, because they don't expect all 10 to be dialled in at once. The same thing is done with cable, and really a 75 to 30 ratio is less than 3 to 1. They don't expect all 50 customers to be download at the same time, all from sites capable of maxing out their bandwidth. And in fact that's what happens: usually only a third or less of the customers are online. Or even half those customers are online but only doing things like browsing the web, which doesn't need that full dedicated 1.5Mbps (keep in mind you're not usually contracted for a full speed, you're contracted for "up to" speeds). So in the end, the cable node hardly ever gets maxed out so much that people get bogged down. Even if all 50 customers came home at once and started downloading email, it's not going to suddenly become dialup speed. You're still going to have over 500Kbps of bandwidth available.


Here's how DSL works:

DSL guy comes and runs a line from the pole to your house (or comes out and taps into your existing phone line for ADSL). This line goes into the local telephone company's lines back to the central office. These are dedicated lines all the way to the CO, so no sharing up to that point. Then your line is tapped into the DSL provider's equipment, a DSLAM (DSL Access Multiplexor). Now, your entire neighborhood, usually your entire CITY except for places like New York and LA, huge places, and often even multiple cities, runs to that same central office (and the reason for those others having multiple CO's is due to higher population density, which means there's still the same number of people using each CO). So every potential DSL customer in your area is going to be terminating on that central office.

Now we'll assume only one DSLAM in the CO, though there could be more than one, as a single DSLAM can handle hundreds of DSL connections (maybe thousands, depending on the model; usually they just stick another card in to add more ports, each user requires one port, plus they have backup empty ones). So lets say there's 250 people in the area served by this CO. This is a low count really, but since I'm proposing a CO with only one DSLAM, I'll assume a small service area. So now we have 250 people coming into this DSLAM. How do they get to their ISP?

First they have to traverse the DSL provider's network. To do this, the provider has to provide a trunk line using the ATM protocol (DSL can run on ATM or frame relay, but it's changed to ATM at the DSLAM), and that trunk line connects to their own backbone network. In this case, we'll say the provider uses a DS3 (T3), which is 45Mbps, or rather, 2 DS3's. This is quite common and is probably about right for the number of customers we're proposing. They'd probably have more than a single DS3, or perhaps an OC3, if they had many more customers. At 90 Mbps of traffic (ignoring any of their own monitoring bandwidth), that means we're at roughly 2.75X oversell if each of those customers has a 1Mbps downstream (which is pretty optimistic). Of course, with DSL, users tend to have MUCH lower speeds due to high prices, so we'll say a 640Kbps downstream for average, which totals 160Mbps. This is only a 1.75X oversell. Extremely optimistic, we have a great provider here.

Now they're passing a maximum of 160Mbps of requested bandwidth if ALL the users tried to download at once. This is exactly where we are with the cable provider. You've got more users with higher speeds than you have bandwidth coming out of the aggregation point. This means that the provider depends on the fact that users are NOT always downloading at full speed, that usually only half or less of the customers will need anything near full speed. The fact that the DSLAM has more bandwidth coming out of it than a cable node is due to the fact that the cable node is serving fewer customers.

In addition to this, both the cable and DSL provider then have to pass the traffic off to the ISP service (neither a DSLAM or cable node pays attention to IP information usually, though a DSLAM can be configured to do so I believe). In the cable company's case, they're handing it off to their own company usually, so they may even have their servers and/or routers right next to the cable node so you're immediately onto the IP network (and depending on how a node is designed, I suppose they could even pass you out via Ethernet, therefore destroying the need to share the limited cable bandwidth).

For a DSL provider, your traffic usually has to transit from the DSLAM out over many points on the DSL network, which are "dark", you don't see them on a trace because they're not looking at IP information, just like you don't see a hub or switch on your network. From the DSL network your traffic is routed to your ISP's IP network via a dedicated circuit between the provider and your ISP, usually a DS3 as well. The DSL provider usually pays for this transit line, and at least in my experience they're not oversold much, if at all, in terms of bandwidth, since a single ISP won't have so many DSL customers that they can overload a DS3. However your traffic has definitely already had to pass over multiple hops within the "dark" network, any of which could be constraining your bandwidth at any time due to traffic loads which aren't even related to your area's DSLAM. (This is exactly the way the Internet works as well, using IP traffic).

Along with these issues, some cable AND DSL providers end up NOT having enough bandwidth out of their node or DSLAM even when they try to plan their overselling well. I can't name names, but for months my company's DSL customers in certain areas had issues with latency and slow speeds because the DSL provider couldn't get more bandwidth into their DSLAM (due to issues with the providers actually running new fibre). This was because their own transit circuits were overloaded with the amount of traffic that the customers in that area were passing (not just our own, EVERY customer of every ISP that provides DSL in those areas).

You can't blanket say that cable is always going to get slow when a lot of users get on the network. This happens with ALL internet traffic with ANY provider using ANY technology. It depends greatly on the number of people in your area using the same service, and the design of the provider's network, and your ISP's network design. Of course, even within a single company's service area, there are variations. A DSL provider is less likely to greatly oversell because they sell you service with a contracted speed (however this is only guaranteed within their own network, they won't give a damn if you can't download at full speed from somewhere else), whereas cable providers usually say you can get "up to" speeds, so you can't complain if you get less. But again, most DSL users get much lower contracted speeds than cable customers are suggested.

So if you've all managed to read through this, maybe now you'll see why DSL is just as much a shared technology as cable. It's just somewhat differently located and designed, and the size of the pipes is different, but it's only a difference in scale; relative to the number of users, it's about the same. I personally get 1.5Mbps almost constantly at all hours of the day on my cable, and the same thing happens at my roommate's parents' house in another city. However we live in areas with probably few cable internet customers. The people in more populated areas probably experience somewhat slower speeds, but most likely only at peak times, the same times everybody gets slowed down a bit due to overall Net usage spiking.

Note that my numbers may be off a bit, maybe a lot, but the sentiment and basic theory still holds true.

 

[Lord Evermore]

I don't think needing a tech to come out makes DSL any more of a hassle to have installed. You have to have a cable tech come out to install cable internet as well. DSL I believe takes at least a few days longer though. (With SDSL it can take weeks since the telephone company has to install an entirely new wire to the pole and then your DSL provider has to come do the internal wiring.)

 

[JoLLyRoGer]

I have had both. At first I was using a 640kbps DSL with Qwest, then I switched over to COX cable. The cable is loads faster. 640Kbps vs. 2.5/4.5 Mbps (varies) bandwidth. Real download speeds: 60-70 KB/s (consistant) vs. 130-370+ KB/s (varies).

There are some inherent security risks with using cable though. Essentially you are building an Ether-network with everyone else on your node. Cable connection is a shared connection. DSL is a one-to-one connection with your ISP. This makes DSL a far more secure connection vs. cable

With proper firewall protection, you can lock down your computer pretty solid in most cases. For me the ends definately justify the means.

It's just a matter of what you're in to. Raw speed, or security. BTW DSL is no slouch of a connection, and depending on where you're located you may or may not get the same speeds that I get on my cable.


Hope this helps.
JR..

 

[RanDum72]

Some one said that DSL is shared. That is not true.

Yes it is true. Cable is shared at an earlier point than DSL but once DSL gets to the telco, THEN it is shared. This is a false sense of "not sharing" here, you do get a line from your house up to the telco but then everybody else is sharing your connection at that point. Another false perception is that only cable will slow down with more users. DSL WILL slow down with more users, DSL speeds start off (or should I say capped) lower than cable so that slowdowns may not be obvious but even when cable slows down, it is still generally faster than DSL. Cable is also much easier and faster to install ( most are one day installations), I went thru PacHell just to experience how painful DSL installs can be

 

[Floydian]

All of my various DSL speeds I've had for the last 2 years on USWest, then Qwest, now Qwest/MSN (256 Kbit, 384 Kbit, 512 Kbit, 640 Kbit down, 272 Kbit up) have been slower then my friends' cable internet (4-5 of them). They had @home for awhile, and then switched over to Charter Pipeline. @home was faster, then pipeline slowed it down a bit, but still faster then my DSL ever has been.

Personally, I'm going to switch over to cable because MSN fuxord everything up, now I have 3x the ping I used to have, and download relatively slow. I average 150 ping now, and MSN said that they don't know what to do, despite having called them and emailed them. The email's result in people telling me to call, and the people on the telephone tell me to email. I also was out an entire week because one of MSN's "server needed to be replaced." All in all, the past month I've been on MSN DSL its sucked, and I hear if I want to switch to a different ISP, I need to pay charges. So basically, I can only switch to cable to get better service it seems.

Make sure to check if your ISP has any charges for changing ISP's or what not.

In regards to ping, I live in Minnesota/central US, and ping around 50 to most central servers. On east coast servers I get about 70-90 and then west coast around 120 or so. This was before the switch to MSN, on average, over my 2 year experience with DSL. My cable friend's have 50-70 on central and east coast servers, and around 100 on west servers. DSL has usually lived up to its line speed for me, not until lately it has never been slower then the rated speed.

Installation for my DSL took around 2 weeks to get the modem and 15 min to install. My friend's cable was installed about 2 days after ordering, and they installed for him.

Good luck

 

[mboy]

I have Optimum Online Cable. When I first got it, my speeds were a constant 5.3Mbps down and 1.1mbps up. Now I get those speeds during off peak hrs or so. The slowest I have yet to see is still over 3.5Mbps down and 900 up. All for $39.99/mo. Was cheaper till I dropped cable TV and got A dish. There is no DSL that can compete with my cable. Certainly no where near what I pay. The ONLY outage I have ever had in the oast 9 mos. was when I cancelled my cable TV and they mistakenly shut off the Broadband too. It was up and running the next day. CABLE is the bomb as far as I am concerned. Smokes my T1 at work!

 

[RagingGuardian]

I got one of those DSl kits from Verizon and hooked up my DSL within like 15mins and I've yet to call tech support. It's kinda low 728/128 but it sure as hell beats dialup. Besides only Verizon offers me dsl in my area.

 

[Yossarian]

Go with the "if it ain't broke" theory. If you're happy with your d/l speeds, price, and customer service, don't switch. Too many broadband companies provide awful service.

 

[RemyCanad]

<FONT face=Verdana size=1>Lord Evermore:
</FONT>
Of course the internet is shared bandwith. From what you say the cable will be shared at the same point as the DSL will be. So the cable will be shared twice while the DSL only once.

Also lets say you are hooked up to cable internet access. And you are running a windows 98 machine. Then you set up file sharing on your computer so that you can share files with another computer than you have on the same hub. Then they are connected to cable. Now your neighbor does the same thing. But your neighbor in to a trusty guy and when he goes into network neighborhood he finds that he can access your files, so the deletes a bunch of them. All becuase you dont have a firewall. DSL is safer just becuase this cannont happen.

Also by the way I am just curious. What is the fastest speed you have downloaded at and what kind of connection was it. (I am not talking about a fluke that just happened once. An actual sustainable speed).

I hit 1.45Mbps on a T-1.

 

[AA0]

The real situation depends on your area, regardless of what the technology behind it is.

In my area, cable and DSL both run amazing. And overall cable kills DSL.
The problem with DSL tends to be that your ISP doesn't have enough bandwidth out of their location to make your connection fly at max speed.

The problem with cable is that the local area group you are on tends to get crowded in newer expanding cable areas. If your cable company doesn't split the areas up, it will mean awful service for you. Cable companies generally buy massive pipelines out of their location, so you don't need to worry about that.

So the question is do you trust your cable company, or phone company to upgrade your service when it gets clogged, because it will. Over the past 4 or 5 years its happened once to both the cable and phone co here. This isn't the US so I doubt you'd get a response like that from your companies, as they generally don't give a damn about the customer, especially Verizon and ATT.

 

[Warin]

<< TextAlso lets say you are hooked up to cable internet access. And you are running a windows 98 machine. Then you set up file sharing on your computer so that you can share files with another computer ... >>



Anyone who turns file sharing on when connected to a cable modem DESERVES to have their files pillaged!

When the @home guy came to install my cable modem, he told me right up front NOT to enable file and printer sharing unless I was running some sort of external firewall. I would hope that all installers do this (of course, he didnt tell me anything that I didnt already know).

IMNSHO, Cable vs DSL? Who cares. Either is better than dial up! If you've got one, stick with it..unless they will guarantee significant speed increases..which of course they wont.

 

[RolyL]

I don't understand why cable should be inherently less secure than DSL. Surely any potential attack will have to come at either the IP or maybe MAC level, and as both DSL and cable usually use ethernet (or pseudo-enet), then surely it doesn't matter?

 

[Shide1]

Like many other people I have also had both. When I have dsl I would get about 1.2Mbps down and 128 up, now that I have cable I get 2-2.2 Mbps down and about 350Kbps up. So the cable is considerably faster. For me cable is almost double as fast as dsl.