Hey folks. Just found affordable ADSL in my neighborhood. Double-checked cable service page and after several months of waiting, it too is now available. So my obvious question is …which to go with?
Has anyone had their lightning fast cable modem grind to a turtleish crawl after their neighbors joined the cable-modem bandwagon? Any experience with both out there? Has anyone had experience with a slow cable connection and an ADSL connection? Was either noticeably faster/slower? Thanks.
Once in a while you can get shown the light
in the strangest of places
if you look at it right…
I have a cable connection, while my father has DSL… I much prefer cable and would never let it go. The DSL is fast, but in all my experience, only about half as fast as my cable modem. With DSL I see downloads SOMETIMES hitting 60KBPS, while I consistently get 150KBPS from good websites with my cable modem. (and up to 300KBPS from AT&T sites, as they are my ISP)
Perhaps People in other areas have a different experience, so I will say this report comes from the Seattle area.
I have 768/384 ADSL from Flashcom, and cable modem is not available in my town, although I’ve used them at a couple of friends’ houses.
The Flashcom installation experience was horrible, although Covad’s physical installation was fine. (I think Flashcom has switched away from Covad for physical installation since then). The service has been fine since then.
I get full speed out of the line when the server at the other end and the rest of the Internet can do it. Flashcom’s news server is slow compared to Media One’s, and never gives me data at full speed.
Cable modem bandwidth is shared, which makes it difficult to define exactly what you’ll get. I have seen Media One downloads significantly slower than mine, at houses where the cable segment is near the maximum number of users and at times when a lot of them were likely to be on line.
You might want to check out DSL Reports. It would certainly scare you away from Flashcom, although I am satisfied after getting over the initial hurdle.
The IS organization at my company sponsor both DSL and cable connection services for telecommuting. We are a high tech company that relies on the transfer of large amounts of data. They claim that DSL is always preferred due to better performance over cable. I have also heard this from a number of users who switched from cable to DSL. Me, I’m stuck with cable for a number of reasons, so I cannot give first hand testimony.
Cable is not at all secure. You can click on the Network Neighborhood icon and open up all of your neighbor’s hard drives, well, all of those that are also on the cable.
DSL goes right from your house to the DSlam and into the internet. It also provides a dynamic IP address, I’m not sure about the cable. It is much more secure. If you were to keep anything personal on your computer - bank account numbers, etc. you’d want the security that DSL provides.
Princess of the Time and Space Continuum since 1969 (upgraded to Goddess 01/07/00) =^…^=
Yes, I did see the plan for the bypass. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard’ - Arthur Dent
I have ADSL from Bell South. My system required the installation of a modem supplied by Bell South. When the ADSL is up and running, the performance is great. When the ADSL service goes out, I am off line until it is restored. Restoring the service once took three days to accomplish. Because of the nature of the signal from the telephone line, using a dial up connection is not an option. Connecting the phone line to a conventional modem would result in destroying that modem at the very least. You might want to consider that aspect, unless you have a back-up computer and an extra phone line.
as far as hooking up a DSL cord to a modem, it’s my understanding that DSL uses the 2 wires not used by the regular phone service.
so couldn’t one just take a 2-conductor phone extension, and hook it up to a splitter, and hook that to your modem, without having the other 2 wires interfere?
also, in another thread somewhere, the site www.freexdsl.com was mentionned… I don’t think it’s available in Canada yet, but it is, in most of the US… if you want a cheap (free) alternative to fast connection, that might well be worth looking into…
I don’t suffer from insanity…
I enjoy every minute of it!
I am far from expert on the modem situation. I was told that the frequency of the signal transmitted to and from the internet was high enough to zap the modem. So, when the ADSL service is down, I sit and wait for it to be restored.
You have to share your drives for other people to see them through network neighborhood. Go to help in the file explorer and look up sharing to find out about this. You are probably still not secure if you are not sharing but at least you are not broadcasting that your files are available.
I am a ADSL computer tech for installers of BellSouth ADSL. Not the customer number for tech support 800-321-adsl, but the number the installers call if they have trouble making a connection. The first part of what you say is true… when ADSL is up and running it is the best in its price range… cable modems dont usually cut it because of bandwidth sharing in the lan. But when it is not working it is the biggest pain in the ass known, trust me I know… the fact of the matter is that there are SO MANY VARIABLES with adsl it impossible to know if you are a good candidate for the service until you are installed and running. Customers are either extreamly happy or dissapointed… BellSouth.net promises 256k download minimum, if you are going faster then that and are not satisfied you have your choice of staying or disconnecting service. The average however is over 1Meg.
The SECOND part of what you say is completely false!!! you can have a separate dial up connection with ADSL on bellsouth with NO PROBLEM! It can should be configured in the “network configuration” with no problem UNLESS!!! the dial up connection you are wanting is with AOL… AOL is like a vampire with ADSL and will suck the life out of it… but this is mostly and installation problem and if AOL was removed before installation it can usually be reinstalled after ADSL is installed without much problem.
If you have more problems or have more questions feel free to email me and I will do my best to research and answer your questions with NO SWB bias!!! Assuming they dont find out Im doing this and fire me Dont laugh… I have had internal email suggesting more.
As-installed, neither DSL nor cable is secure. Since cable modems share resources with others on the same loop, as-installed cable is usually less secure thatn DSL.
If you turn off file and printer sharing, then as-installed cable and as-installed DSL are equivalent security. You can also leave file and printer sharing on, but make sure that you have installed the NetBEUI protocol and turn off the binding of TCP/IP to file and printer sharing. (NetBEUI is better suited to such tasks than TCP/IP anyway).
To get a secure system with either cable or DSL, you need a firewall.
Oh, in case anyone asks, NetBEUI = netBIOS Enhanced User Interface.
SDSL (symmetric DSL), which costs more, is just as fast up as down.
ADSL (Asymmetric DSL) is slower up than down.
You can get up to something like 7 Mbps in both directions if you are willing to pay for it.
My 768Kbps down / 384Kbps up ADSL line costs $80/month. I am aware that cable is noticably cheaper; I can’t get cable, so there’s no choice to make.
Also, many cable systems do not let you have all the available bandwidth when it’s available. Many restrict download to 600Kbps or so and uploads to lower figures. Check the fine print.
The ADSL service on your phone uses high-frequency signals that are completely ignored by the voice portion of your phone system. That’s why you can use your phone at the same time as you’re using your DSL service. The presence or absece of ADSL should have absolutely no effect on a voice-line modem.
My friends who have Bell Atlantic-supplied DSL all use modems when their DSL service goes out - on he same phone line that their DSL service is on - without any problems.
Having said that, I have to admit that I can’t test this scenario directly. My DSL service is supplied by COVAD (because Bell Atlantic claimed that I was too far away from the CO to get DSL), and until recently Bell Atlantic wouldn’t let third-party DSL services run on BA’s existing phone lines. BA forced COVAD to obtain (and pay BA roughly $20/month for) a new “phone line” to my house that has no voice service on it. The FCC has since forced the phone companies to treat third-party DSL suppliers the same way they treat their own in-house DSL suppliers, so this wouldn’t have happened if my COVAD service were being installed now.
Dont laugh… I have had internal email suggesting more.