Teach Me About Cable Internet Please

Factual Questions
1

Having grown up with 56K internet and now having had DSL for the past few years, I have noticed that I know little to nothing about cable internet. Who better to come to than my fellow Dopers? The prospect of upgrading my internet has been brought up a few times recently and this is what sparked my notice.

So Dopers, in short words, explain to me the terminology and accompanying devices that come with cable internet please.

I understand that a cable connection requires a separate modem from my DSL modem, correct? Anything passed that, I have no idea about. I am so ignorant of how it works, I don’t even know what questions to ask. Please alleviate this ignorance.

2

When you order cable internet, the installation guy will bring you a cable modem (you will usually have to “rent” this from the cable company) and install and configure it.

You can plug directly into this cable modem, but it only has 1 ethernet port on it. If you have 1 computer in the house, and it’s close to where they will install it, you’re fine. They will split your cable coming in, 1 for the TV and 1 for the cable modem.

If you need more ports, or want wireless, you will need a router. You plug the router into the cable modem, and then plug your computer(s) into the router, or connect wirelessly to the router.

It’s really pretty simple and painless, as long as you already have cable TV from the company you’re ordering the internet from. There will be no more connections to your phone line when you’re all done, and you can remove the DSL filters from your line.

3

Put succinctly, you need an incoming cable, and a cable modem (which will likely come with the cabling to feed the signal into your computer). The modem will either be free or less than a hundred dollars. You may also want a router (wireless or otherwise) in the event you want to run multiple devices through your broadband connection (multiple computers, or a VOIP phone service).

4

DSL works because it runs over existing telephone lines. Cable modems work because they run over existing cable infrastructure.

If youre interested you can read the entry for DOCSIS at wikipedia, but thats probably more information than you care to know.

Essentially, for the end user its the same as DSL. The techs drop off a box which plugs into the cable and into your router or computer.

In my area, cable is much more expensive than DSL, but a bit faster. I opt to save money by keeping DSL. Unless youre chronically downloading massive torrents you wont notice the extra speed.

5

Yeah, this is the reason why I didn’t just skip over DSL when I upgraded from 56K. I only browse the 'net, not download full movies or anything like that. So the speed boost will be nice, but the main reason I’m looking at cable internet is for one of those “bundles” cable companies offer. Looking to save me some monies ya know?

So apparently it would seem the DSL modem and wires just simply get replaced by a cable modem and related wiring. Coo.

Thanks everyone for your input. I didn’t want to be ordering up new internet and having the technician guy start talking a bunch of technical mumbo jumbo that I couldn’t understand. Thanks. :slight_smile:

6

One other thing I should mention is tha when you’re using DSL, up/down speeds are yours, and are not affected by how many people in the area are using it. Cable is shared.

As much as I like to make fun of Ted Stevens for calling the internet “tubes”, it’s an easy analogy here.

Imagine DSL as a bunch of small tubes, each one connected between your ISP and the subscribers of DSL (you). If someone else on DSL is maxing out their tube, it doesn’t affect you.

Imagine cable as a large tube, with spigots coming out for each subscriber. If someone on your tube is using a lot, it leaves less for you. Usually it’s not a problem except for high-use periods of the day (right after work and on the weekends), especially if you’re in a big city or congested area.

And, now I’m done. You can forget all about tubes now, unless your name is Ted.

7

Ah yes, I knew that already, but had specifically wanted to ask about that in the OP. :smack:

I know the default configuration is for cable internet to be shared amongst a neighborhood or however the company has it set up, but is it possible in the least to have that bandwidth all to myself?

8

The bandwidth they promise is “maximum bandwidth”. I’ve lived in several places and had cable internet, and I’ve really only run into issues in big cities, or with a cable company that doesn’t have good coverage. If you’re with one of the big ones (time warner, comcast, etc.) you really shouldn’t have an issue.

If you do see issues, your best bet would be to call the cable company and complain that you’re not able to hit your maximums. They may throttle the speed of the frequent offender, which would help you.

9

Depends how its sold. In my previous apartments Ive had cable modems and got full speed all the time. My brother has a cable modem and gets full speed all the time. I think this overselling was a big problem when cable modems first came out and when the DOCSIS protocol and backhaul had a fraction of the bandwidth. Not to mention all the complaints people had and the threats of moving to DSL. Nowadays it seems to be a non-issue, but you should investigate complaints and reports from this company before you buy.

10

I have a 9Mbps cable connection.

This is faster than i need for just about anything i’m likely to do. The only time we come close to using all our bandwidth is when both my wife and i are watching streaming video like MLB.TV or Netflix on two different computers. For about 95 percent of our internet use, i reckon about 3Mbps would be more than enough.

I periodically run speed tests using a couple of test sites, and the lowest download speeds i’ve ever recorded were in the area of 5.5Mbps, which is about 60 percent of my maximum. Most of the time, my tests get somewhere in the 8-8.5Mbps range.

11

It’s highly unlikely you will get maxium speed, I have never ONCE seen anyone get maxium speed. I would have to see a screen shot to believe it.

Oh you can get close or close enough, but getting maxium speed is very difficult.

That said, whether you choose DSL or Cable look at cap speeds.

Comcast in some areas limits downloading at certain times. For instance, it may say between 6pm and 10pm all download speeds are limited to 3mbs. Outside of those times you get 6mbs.

This is to prevent hogging of shared resources. Some cable companies have even started charging download limits per month. Say 50gb per month. That currently is uncommon and some DSL companies do it too, but it’s more common with Cable.

Cable has a vested interest in capping, because if you go to Netflix to download a movie you probably could also get that movie on pay-per-view from the cable company.

If you don’t do file sharing the download cap wasn’t much of an issue UNTIL high def comes into play. Those high def files are huge and could easily push you over your cap.

Finally my best piece of advice is to find out the offers from your DSL, CABLE and other sources (if any). Then use them against each other. I had DSL the slowest and I saw a deal from Comcast. I called up AT&T they matched Comcasts offer as best they could. I got 6mbs for $17.50 as opposed to Comcast max (which I believe was 9mbs) for $19.99 (both deals were for six months).

I never had any intention of switching but it probably will get you a deal. Just call them up and tell them you’re canceling and they will switch you over to a “retention specialist.”

I didn’t even waste anytime talking. I said “I’m not happy about Comcast as a company but the deal is too good to pass up, unless you could do any better on price.” They immediately gave me the better offer. Or you could say “My friend got a deal that was XXX, if I could get that I’d stay otherwise I’m going with Comcast.”

If they for some odd reason refuse you, just say, “you’ll think about it, and try again later on.”

Usually if you’re trying to play one company off another to get a deal you can’t get back to back deals, but you just wait a month in between.

12

I would say there is one big difference from the end user’s point of view.
With DSL, you can have your DSL modem anywhere in the house where there is a phone jack.
With cable, the only place you can put the cable modem is where the cable enters the house.

In my experience, typical single-family residences have a phone jack in many rooms (e.g. all the bedrooms, the kitchen, etc.) whereas the cable connection is only in one or maybe two rooms.

If all your computers can use a wireless connection, then it doesn’t matter so much. But I personally find that a wire to the DSL modem is more reliable and faster than using the wireless connection to the wireless base station.

13

True, although newer places have more outlets.

The condo we rent is only a couple of years old, and it has cable outlets in both bedrooms, and at opposite ends of the living/dining area.

14

Not at my place. The dsl is wired to one outlet as having multiple outlets wired only adds noise to the line. The AT&T tech only wanted to do one to minimize noise and considering how far I am from the CO, it makes sense. At my old place it was the same deal. One jack.

15

Even if you don’t need it, I’d put a wireless router on the cable modem anyway.

(Of course, some cable modems have routers built in.)

Reasons: you get a basic hardware firewall and you can easily add new devices.

Last month while on vacation, the place where I was staying provided Internet access with one single port in the wall. I went to Wal*Mart and bought a simple wireless Belkin router for $30, and after some tweaking, everyone in the house was able to use their electronic gadgetry.

16

I think you mean you could only have one DSL modem. But the DSL modem could have gone into any of your house’s phone jacks, right? I was trying to explain that usually you have more places in the house in which you can place your DSL modem.

eta: or do you mean that only one phone jack in the house was able to handle DSL traffic? If so I would be surprised by that.

17

Some DSL installers will only put the DSL modem on the first jack coming off the line into the house. Especially if the jacks are wired in series, because of the noise that increases with each successive jack.

If you’re near the end of the CO range, that makes even more of a difference to maximize speeds.

18

Cable companies have a future bandwidth problem. To increase bandwidth to homes, they must add more cables. So they are quietly canceling the contracts of anyone who uses too much internet. For example, if you get radio (ie BBC) over the internet, you consume too much bandwidth. If maybe 3 out of 24 consume that much bandwidth, the other 21 suffer accordingly.

This is also why Comcast bought (and refused to admit they bought) a program to scramble and deny Skype packets. And have been caught by the FCC (even after denying it) for throttling the bandwidth access for some customers.

How does cable work? Cable is full of channels. Some channels get used for cable TV. Some for phone. Some for internet. DOCSIS is the protocol uses on those internet channels. The cable mode is simply a TV like receiver designed to receive (but also transmit) a different protocol. Cable then has amplifiers tuned to different frequencies. The one transmitted by your modem get amplified in one direction. Frequencies transmitted to you modem and TV get amplified in other direction. Its all analog radio waves.

DSL is similar. Except DSL is radio waves on telephone wires. You don’t wait for someone on your phone line to stop transmitting. Your DSL modem talks to the ISP’s DSLAM constantly - without anyone else getting in the way. On cable, your modem must wait for everyone else to stop transmitting. No problem at 3 AM. A major problem when a neighbor does video conferencing. A less of a problem as the cable company takes more frequencies away from TV to dedicate them to internet.

19

DSL is an obsolete technology. It won’t get any faster and the pipe won’t get any bigger. At its maximum, it is nowhere near as fast as typical cable offerings today, and for cable, since it is fiber-based, the sky’s the limit for future speed and capacity. As the pipeline gets bigger, the cost per byte will decrease.

Fiber is the future. Although you may only have fiber to the curb now, fiber to the home is the platinum standard for tomorrow.

20

westom, everything you say about cable is true. It is shared, and cable companies always try to avoid over capacity. Some (but not all) will throttle back the biggest users to the lowest common denominator.

However, it is incredibly cheap to add a single fiber to a cable run, and multiple fibers are only marginally more expensive. This means that for a tiny investment, cable companies can offer 1000 times more bandwidth to their customers and still make money at the old rates. For industries that consider a 2X improvement significant, fiber is so far ahead of this that the mind boggles. This ratio of cost-to-benefit is so unprecedented in infrastructure history that many communication companies don’t know how to handle it.

Yes, I know this is GQ, and I don’t have cites for this at my fingertips. My information comes from attending the local technology conferences for several years, absorbing the info supplied by prospective developers and technology gurus, and 40 years of working in and near the communications field.