Which internet pipe would you rather have?

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viking66

Member
Jan 19, 2003
76
0
0
if you also use a home phone i would go with cable and you can counter the higher price by switching from a pots phone line to viop.. in my case i was paying 55 a month for local at&t + long distants charges.. i switched to vonage for 25 a month unlimited local and longdistance.. saving me lots.. dsl added static to my old phone so i switched to cable and viop..
 

DaWhim

Lifer
Feb 3, 2003
12,985
1
81
verizon dsl. their newsgroup is just awesome.

it is not as awesome as adelphia tho, since adelphia has news service with giganews with 90 days retention!!! the down side is 5gb monthly cap. it is great for what I use newsgroups.
 

Horus

Platinum Member
Dec 27, 2003
2,838
1
0
Originally posted by: Azndude2190
I would go with DSL...faster upload speeds...more reliable connection.

And plus were talking about $20 dollars more for the cable.

More reliable connection? are you on CRACK? In the 6 years I've had cable I've had it go down on me maybe 5 times...and every time the situation was rectified.

My sister has DSL in Toronto...she says it's TERRIBLE.
 

Conky

Lifer
May 9, 2001
10,709
0
0
Originally posted by: Horus
Originally posted by: Azndude2190
I would go with DSL...faster upload speeds...more reliable connection.

And plus were talking about $20 dollars more for the cable.

More reliable connection? are you on CRACK? In the 6 years I've had cable I've had it go down on me maybe 5 times...and every time the situation was rectified.

My sister has DSL in Toronto...she says it's TERRIBLE.
My cable is great but has been down countless times in the last few years for as long as 3 or 4 days in a row. Reliable is not what I would call my cable.

If I was the OP I would go with the DSL. $20 a month cheaper AND faster upload... I'm there. :p

 

I Saw OJ

Diamond Member
Dec 13, 2004
4,923
2
76
I had the same dilema when I moved into my apartment. Both were about the same price as yours however my cable is a 6meg d/l.

Anyway after some shopping around I found that in addition to the DSL line I had to pay for a phone line to the house. I wasnt planning on getting a landline since I use my cellphone for everything. So with a landline and the DSL subscription it would have came out to about the same price as the cable, just with less than half the speed.

I am currently using cable and downloading porn like there is no tomorrow.
 

rudder

Lifer
Nov 9, 2000
19,441
86
91
Originally posted by: Rip the Jacker
Cable, Cable, Cable.

DSL is horrible.

says you. I have DSL and have had it for a year. It is about 1/2 the cost of cable in my area. I get 75ms pings in DoD, and its plenty fast for the occasional snagging of the missed episode of lost.

I would say it depends on what he needs high speed for. To DL tons of pr0n then get the $53/mo cable, if not save money and get DSL.
 

Pabster

Lifer
Apr 15, 2001
16,986
1
0
Depends on your area. Mediacom sucks big time in a lot of locales. Here it is very good, albeit overpriced.
 

jfall

Diamond Member
Oct 31, 2000
5,975
2
0
I find DSL better for gaming, but cable has faster downloads (at least in my area)
 

Specop 007

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2005
9,454
0
0
Originally posted by: eos
Originally posted by: Sukhoi
DSL unless you're going to be downloading a LOT.

Here are my personal up/down stats. If you look at 2005-07 through now, that is on a 1.5mb/796k DSL. Before that, I was on 6mb/768k Comcast cable.

You might want to remember that with cable internet, you share a node with a few neighbors. If they are bandwidth hogs, you might not get great performance.

Dsl is your own connection. You share with no one.

DSL is shared. Maybe not from your CO to you, but it IS shared at some point.
 

GeekDrew

Diamond Member
Jun 7, 2000
9,099
19
81
Originally posted by: Horus
Originally posted by: Azndude2190
I would go with DSL...faster upload speeds...more reliable connection.

And plus were talking about $20 dollars more for the cable.

More reliable connection? are you on CRACK? In the 6 years I've had cable I've had it go down on me maybe 5 times...and every time the situation was rectified.

My sister has DSL in Toronto...she says it's TERRIBLE.

Why can't everyone here seem to realize that the fight about DSL/Cable has far too many variables to be a one-size-fits-all decision?

For example, in parts of Columbus, Time-Warner is awesome, and are very, very reliable. AT&T DSL is also available there, and the price is significantly less, but the speeds are slower. Depending on the distance you are from the CO/RT, DSL may or may not be more/less reliable than cable for you.

On the other hand, in other parts of Columbus, Insight Communications operates the cable network. I would have to be dead before I even thought about describing them as "reliable". When I lived in their region, I had outages at least once a month, usually more frequently than that. Those outages affected the *entire* digital network for my immediate area -- no cable TV, no internet, etc. They had outages about twice as frequently, that affected only the internet portion of their service, and usually the outages were only a few minutes long, but they were still horribly annoying. I switched to AT&T DSL about 6 months before I moved out. My friends that still live in that house still have AT&T DSL -- they said that they haven't noticed any outages at all.

I have other friends that live near me, in the middle of nowhere. Cable TV doesn't come out this far, and DSL is their only option, other than satellite internet. They have Verizon DSL. It has gone out a few times in the last year, but each time for good reason -- lengthy power outages, trucks taking out copper bundles, flooding in the CO, etc - "acts of God". The CO is near a cable plant for Time-Warner... the CO and their DSL service came back up within about a day of the flooding, whereas TW took over a week to get back online.

As for me, I now generally prefer DSL to cable, but that *obviously* depends on the area. People really ought to stop asking ATOT for advice about this, or at least narrow the scope of your thread to your immediate geographic region.
 

randomlinh

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
20,846
2
0
linh.wordpress.com
what geekdrew said... it all depends on where you live. dsl for me is a bit flakey, and i didn't want to deal w/ verizon taking months trying to fix it... so i stuck w/ cable.

the cost of a landline for me is irrelevant because cable isn't reliable enough still for me. I tried, and it just wasn't up to par. Granted, the $40/mo is a pain just to have a land line. we have caller id too, but that's $5/mo so we can easily screen our calls. this is why I want fios.. it seems to be good here.. and if we can get a nice neat and clean package deal.. i'm all for it.
 

potato28

Diamond Member
Jun 27, 2005
8,964
0
0
Originally posted by: Horus
Originally posted by: Azndude2190
I would go with DSL...faster upload speeds...more reliable connection.

And plus were talking about $20 dollars more for the cable.

More reliable connection? are you on CRACK? In the 6 years I've had cable I've had it go down on me maybe 5 times...and every time the situation was rectified.

My sister has DSL in Toronto...she says it's TERRIBLE.

And who does she have her DSL from? Telus?
 

mrSHEiK124

Lifer
Mar 6, 2004
11,488
2
0
In this situation, I'd say go for the DSL. You'll miss the 512kbps of upload bandwidth more than you will 2mbps down.
Normally though, Cable FTW. Nothing beats 40 ms pings when playing BF2 :)
 

Acanthus

Lifer
Aug 28, 2001
19,915
2
76
ostif.org
Originally posted by: Horus
Originally posted by: Azndude2190
I would go with DSL...faster upload speeds...more reliable connection.

And plus were talking about $20 dollars more for the cable.

More reliable connection? are you on CRACK? In the 6 years I've had cable I've had it go down on me maybe 5 times...and every time the situation was rectified.

My sister has DSL in Toronto...she says it's TERRIBLE.

Thats like saying all cars are terrible because my 1976 honda that never had an oil change broke down a lot.
 

Acanthus

Lifer
Aug 28, 2001
19,915
2
76
ostif.org
Originally posted by: mrSHEiK124
In this situation, I'd say go for the DSL. You'll miss the 512kbps of upload bandwidth more than you will 2mbps down.
Normally though, Cable FTW. Nothing beats 40 ms pings when playing BF2 :)

Ive had single digits on verizon DSL.
 

Eos

Diamond Member
Jun 14, 2000
3,463
17
81
Originally posted by: Acanthus
Originally posted by: Horus
Originally posted by: Azndude2190
I would go with DSL...faster upload speeds...more reliable connection.

And plus were talking about $20 dollars more for the cable.

More reliable connection? are you on CRACK? In the 6 years I've had cable I've had it go down on me maybe 5 times...and every time the situation was rectified.

My sister has DSL in Toronto...she says it's TERRIBLE.

Thats like saying all cars are terrible because my 1976 honda that never had an oil change broke down a lot.

I don't understand how anyone can report personal experience as the experience that everyone will have. :confused:
 

GTaudiophile

Lifer
Oct 24, 2000
29,767
33
81
My plan I think is to go with Verizon DSL in the hopes of being able to upgrade to FIOS once it becomes available in say the Silver Spring, MD area.
 

Sukhoi

Elite Member
Dec 5, 1999
15,350
106
106
Originally posted by: eos
Originally posted by: Acanthus
Originally posted by: Horus
Originally posted by: Azndude2190
I would go with DSL...faster upload speeds...more reliable connection.

And plus were talking about $20 dollars more for the cable.

More reliable connection? are you on CRACK? In the 6 years I've had cable I've had it go down on me maybe 5 times...and every time the situation was rectified.

My sister has DSL in Toronto...she says it's TERRIBLE.

Thats like saying all cars are terrible because my 1976 honda that never had an oil change broke down a lot.

I don't understand how anyone can report personal experience as the experience that everyone will have. :confused:

But lots of people here do. :D Sample size of 1 FTW!
 

Fritzo

Lifer
Jan 3, 2001
41,920
2,161
126
DSL. More stable bandwidth and more speed for the $$$. ATT 6.0 DSL is $27.99 in most areas, yours seems a bit pricey.
 

alkemyst

No Lifer
Feb 13, 2001
83,769
19
81
I would never get cable unless I knew I was in a remote area. Cable service is shared. I have had more complaints from friends and relatives that have it than any other service type. They first usually are thrilled with the fast service when they move in to a new building/community...then as neighbors come in....during peak times their service crawls.

With DSL you pretty much get your download speed always....however; should you have a lot of uploaders on your segment...this is bad. Fortunately people are mostly leeches :)

Uploading on DSL can impact the service.

I can only get 1.5Mbps here because the providers don't show the miniram on my block on their maps. They think I am from 18000-21000 feet away from the CO.

Still 1.5Mbps is nothing to complain about, once you scale up in bandwidth other sites and the internet as a whole become more of a limit. Even if you could buy a 50Mbps connection for your home PC, it would be doubtful you'd ever see that bandwidth.

Å
 

Damn Dirty Ape

Diamond Member
Nov 1, 1999
3,310
0
76
Originally posted by: Fritzo
DSL. More stable bandwidth and more speed for the $$$. ATT 6.0 DSL is $27.99 in most areas, yours seems a bit pricey.

I think 768/128 is something like 22.95 and the 3.0/768 is the 29.95 plus taxes..