My neighbor has DSL and his Ethernet card apparently has died. He thought it might have been the cable, but the one I gave him didn’t help. Until he can get a new one, he wanted me to research options. The external DSL modem has a USB connection on it. If he can find a cable ( I think it’s A-male and B-male connectors), how fast would it be compared to the Ethernet? Also, I came across USB Ethernet adapters during my search. Can this be use in place of the Ethernet card using the USB DSL connection? Thank you for any help.
Max theoretical speed for USB 2.0 is 480Mbps which is faster than standard fast Ethernet (100Mbps), but slower than gig-E (1000Mbps). My experience with USB 2.0 connections has seen them top out at about 300Mpbs. This is certainly fast enough for most people, and more than fast enough for an internet connection.
If you were using the USB DSL connection, you would not need an Ethernet card. A USB Ethernet adapter for your PC would allow you to use the Ethernet connection on the DSL modem. As for performance, it really is a push. There are many cheap USB-Ethernet dongles that are less than reliable, so it may be smarter to just go with the USB cable connection to the DSL modem at first to see if that works for you.
Of course, you would need to ensure that the USB connection on the DSL modem can be used for network connectivity. Some gateways only use the USB for adding devices such as printers and not for direct connection to a computer.