DSL speeds and alternatives...

[whyrichard]

Hey guys,

wondering if anyone has experience with at&t dsl... and any advice on how it may compare with cable internet....

here is the offer from at&t, and a speed test of our current dsl... note that it sucks!
is the "up to twice as fast" thing valid, even possible? would cable be so much better? what are competitive cable internet prices like around la right now?

thanks,
r.

 

[Zwhaler]

I have the Elite package from ATT Yahoo DSL, at 6.0 mbps, it is their fastest package. They have great service and everything, I strongly recomend them.

 

[whyrichard]

I have the Elite package from ATT Yahoo DSL, at 6.0 mbps, it is their fastest package. They have great service and everything, I strongly recomend them.

how much $$?

which city are you in?

how does this compare with dsl?

thanks!
r.

 

[Nermal]

I'm going a bit off topic here, but I found this interesting, because I thought my connection wasn't actually that good!

 

[itsme92]

And people say that Comcast sucks

 

[solvs]

And people say that Comcast sucks

You're up in Northern CA aren't you. My Sister has that 16Mb thing from Comcast in Santa Clara, and they actually get it on a regular basis. Depends on the area though, because right across the street even, they can barely get 4Mb.

The Comcast I had in WA was about the same speed. I'm happy to get this in an L.A. suburb with TimeWarner, I have friends who live in the middle of nowhere and can't get anything. But it does get slow sometimes. They offer a 10Mb connection, but it's $10 more per month, and I haven't decided if it's worth it or not.

 

[apfhex]

You're up in Northern CA aren't you. My Sister has that 16Mb thing from Comcast in Santa Clara, and they actually get it on a regular basis. Depends on the area though, because right across the street even, they can barely get 4Mb.

Daaang that's fast! You mean that PowerBoost thing they've been yapping about? I haven't experienced it myself — in fact I just moved and my Comcast connection went from 8mbit to 5mbit. And to top it off there are troubles with the signal quality too. A guy's coming out tomorrow to climb up the poll and check it out. Before I moved, though, it was really great and really fast all the time, and rare outages.

IMHO it beats DSL. To get to the OP's question, I would ask neighbors if they have ATT DSL and what speeds they get. That's the thing, you've gotta live fairly close to a switching station/central office/whatever they call those things to get the fast speeds, unless DSL technology has changed significantly in the 2 or 3 years since I've had DSL myself. When I did it wasn't great. We got about half of the 1.5mbit speeds we were paying for (they didn't guarantee those speeds, obviously) and it was more expensive than Comcast HSI.

 

[flyfish29]

IMHO it beats DSL. To get to the OP's question, I would ask neighbors if they have ATT DSL and what speeds they get. That's the thing, you've gotta live fairly close to a switching station/central office/whatever they call those things to get the fast speeds, unless DSL technology has changed significantly in the 2 or 3 years since I've had DSL myself. When I did it wasn't great. We got about half of the 1.5mbit speeds we were paying for (they didn't guarantee those speeds, obviously) and it was more expensive than Comcast HSI.

As apfhex said, DSL varies greatly depending on where you live in regard tot he phone transfer stations. I lived a block and a half and mine rivaled what I get now with my cable net. Others that lived farther away got considerably slower. My cable slows way down because I live in a college town, but the DSL never took a hit so it was nice while I had it. Now i live too far away to get a good connection through dsl.

Find out what neighbors have it so you can do a test. See if there is a trial period if you can't find neighbors with it- but sometimes you have to sign up for year committment with dsl so be sure it is something you want to stay with and will be happy.

Good luck

 

[nateDEEZY]

I'm from Northern California as well, and I also have comcast.

It sure as hell beats dsl, i was paying 17.99. I was to far from the main building to get there 6mbit, so I was like efff it I'll get cable. Omg it's so much faster! Especially when I download movies off iTunes, I remember Zoolander took like 7minutes. Oh and I'm paying $33 a month, no contract

 

[Zwhaler]

how much $$?

which city are you in?

how does this compare with dsl?

thanks!
r.

I got a deal, 17.99 for the first year for my 6 mbps. But normally it is around 30 per month.

I'm in San Ramon, a little south of Livermore, CA.

How does it compare with cable? It all depends on where you live. DSL is better here than Cable, so I went with it.

 

[macg4]

cough....mediacom....cough

 

[Mr. Burns]

Bah, 160kbps download speed would be better than dial-up, my only option. Well, excluding satellite, but I'm not interested in latencies (I'd like to play WoW someday again). I live 15 miles from Wisconsin state capital building, have 6 towers line of sight within 8 miles of my house (apparently none with a WISP), 21,000 wire run feet from nearest central office and they will not authorize a DSL connection (need to be 16,000 wire run feet or 3 miles for guaranteed minimum 768kbps-$15/month, 1.5mbps-$22/month). Your local pole to pole telephone wire/service drop wire hardware, I'm told, can negate/alter DSL service even if you live next to the central office or your neighbor gets it fine. Still waiting on further word from Verizon. Do they run you around on purpose? I've got cauliflower ear from being on the phone transfer train. No other competitors in my area, no cable access. Would consider moving, but I love my old house. Wait and wait some more. Can we hope for federal/state legislation, budget designations for infrastructure upgrades? Blah! Considering using cellular wireless for signal, but heard it gets on average 70kbps download. Good thing I don't run a business out of my home. Not interested in going broke on T1 lines or other such nonsense.

BTW, had a cable modem when I lived in downtown Madison, WI. It was 2 years ago, but if I remember, it was 1.5mbps download regularly. Didn't know how large the user base was for my area, but I heard that it makes a difference during peak usage times. But doesn't decrease with distance from central office. Cost about $45/month, no cable TV added. Sounds like urban/suburban CA has better offerings, what about the boondocks out there on the west coast?

I swear, I'll try not to rant on this in the future... maybe.

 

[apfhex]

And people say that Comcast sucks

You're up in Northern CA aren't you. My Sister has that 16Mb thing from Comcast in Santa Clara, and they actually get it on a regular basis. Depends on the area though, because right across the street even, they can barely get 4Mb.

Daaang that's fast! You mean that PowerBoost thing they've been yapping about? I haven't experienced it myself — in fact I just moved and my Comcast connection went from 8mbit to 5mbit.

Hoping not to get too far OT... I got a new modem from Comcast in hope of resolving my connection issues, and now I'm seeing much faster download speeds.

(Speedtest.net gives me slightly better results)

 

[itsme92]

Hoping not to get too far OT... I got a new modem from Comcast in hope of resolving my connection issues, and now I'm seeing much faster download speeds.

(Speedtest.net gives me slightly better results)

Hey, maybe I can see if a new modem speeds up my connnection seeing as I've had the same one since 1999-2000, when I was using Windows 95 and logging on to the Internet with Netscape 4.

 

[JNB]

Cox in Phoenix has been pretty good. They're rating me at 9/1, but this is typical of what I get at peak times. Off-peak is usually about 12.5-13/1.5-1.75. I'm paying $49 (bundled with phone).

 

[apfhex]

Cost about $45/month, no cable TV added. Sounds like urban/suburban CA has better offerings, what about the boondocks out there on the west coast?

I know personally that Cazadero, pretty far out in nowhere, got Comcast HSI a few years ago and the speeds are really good (8mbps and up). It's a town that will never ever ever ever get DSL or anything that depends on distance. AFAIK Comcast only offers one internet package and it costs $45/mo with cable TV or $60 without.

OTOH I've a friend that lives in another remote location of the county and can't get cable at all, period. They have a dual ISDN line as well as satellite internet, neither of which seem to work particularly well.

 

[whyrichard]

interesting, but we seem to be all over the charts?! some get 1500 kps, the other 15 MBS?! big big difference?!

i did the "free" upgrade to my dsl speed through sbc yahoo and today i've got this:


it seems okay, a 1.1 gig movie in a hour.... how do some have a 15 Mbs connection? correct me if i am wrong, at 17.95kbps as shown here, i've got 1.795 (or something) megabytes per second download...? and some are geting 15 megabytes per second? wow?!


thanks,
r.

 

[apfhex]

correct me if i am wrong, at 17.95kbps as shown here, i've got 1.795 (or something) megabytes per second download...? and some are geting 15 megabytes per second? wow?!

You're confusing bytes with bits. Bytes are uppercase like "MB", and bits are lowercase like "mb" or I guess sometimes like "Mb". It's confusing. Internet connection speeds are measured in bits. No one here is getting 15 megabytes per second downloads — that would be pretty astounding! A 15mbps connection is something like 1.8MB per second download speeds.

Also us Comcast users getting 15mbps connections, that's only with their "PowerBoost" feature which means those speeds don't actually last for very long. In fact my sustained download speeds after the boot "wears off" (I'm not sure what the parameters are, something like 15 seconds?) are about 800KB per second.

So your connection speed is 1795Kbps, or about 224KB per second downloads, if I'm not mistaken.