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DSL Vs. Cable (for two guys)

maestro55

maestro55

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Nov 13, 2005
2,708
0
Goat Farm in Meridian, TX
So right now I live at home and my parents pay for Time Warner Cable's Roadrunner high speed internet, where we live we get about 1.5megs down and MAYBE 300K up. Not the fastest and at around $50 a moth I was looking for other alternatives, though from what I have gathered DSL is less but much much slower. So I was curious what everyone here was using and would suggest for two guys and three computers (my brother shall me moving out with me). There isn't an option not to have the internet, I spend way too much time online everyday plus I take distance learning classes and such so having the internet is a must.

What is a bummer here is I have two options for high speed, Time Warner or AT&T (the nice thing with AT$T is they could just add the charge to my monthly wireless bill and it is a bit cheaper). I have no experience with DSL, so I know Cable is good and pretty fast for what I need (and yes that includes bittorrents from time to time) would I be disappointed with DSL?
 
maestro55 said:
what I have gathered DSL is less but much much slower.
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It all depends on how close/far you are from the central office.

With "modern" ADSL your download speeds will actually be better than cable as you are not sharing the bandwidth with your neighbors. Upload speed however is usually less than with cable.

In both cases where i have had "1.5 Mbps" DSL service, I've been lucky and that has been worst case on a bad day with 3.0 Mbps typical.

B
 
The cable vs DSL speed wise is really not true. While the max speed cable can do can go is higher than DSL just no one really offers anything. Realty is the speeds are about the same for the same price level. The max speed DSL can go is about 25Mbits/sec and I believe that limit is in place by regulations not because the lines can not handle more.

I pay 40 a month for 6 Mbit down and 1 Mbit up DLS. My service is though ATT Uverse. That is also my cable TV. of that 25 of so Mbits down stream everything but that 6Mbits is for the TV.

Just though I point out that really DSL and cable speed wise are about the same for the same price. Prices vs speed is different for different areas of the country.
 
Is it just as easy to network a DSL connection as it is a Cable connection? Here at the house we have a Cisco wireless router hooked up to our cable modem. Can this be easily done with a DSL modem?
 
maestro55 said:
Is it just as easy to network a DSL connection as it is a Cable connection? Here at the house we have a Cisco wireless router hooked up to our cable modem. Can this be easily done with a DSL modem?
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It is exactly the same. Plug the modem into the router and you are good to go.

Worse case the DSL account is a PPoe (or something like that) and that requires a minor amount of set up in the router which would take all but 2 mins to do but chances are it will be just like cable which is just plug and go.

Plug it into the router and you are good to go. My parents have been doing that for years with there DSL line.
 
6 of 1 half a dozen of the other. I pay $54 for 8Mbps in Denver through Comcast. Well, my work pays for it :). For general use internet I don't think it really matters, though the further you are from the central office the slower dsl will get, you may not know that until you move though.

From what i have experienced through help desk work, cable seems to be more friendly for vpn connections.
 
Rodimus Prime said:
The cable vs DSL speed wise is really not true. While the max speed cable can do can go is higher than DSL just no one really offers anything. Realty is the speeds are about the same for the same price level. The max speed DSL can go is about 25Mbits/sec and I believe that limit is in place by regulations not because the lines can not handle more.

I pay 40 a month for 6 Mbit down and 1 Mbit up DLS. My service is though ATT Uverse. That is also my cable TV. of that 25 of so Mbits down stream everything but that 6Mbits is for the TV.

Just though I point out that really DSL and cable speed wise are about the same for the same price. Prices vs speed is different for different areas of the country.
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I'm sorry. I just feel the need to correct this, mainly because I'm overly OCD and... I'm weird like that.

Cable vs. DSL speeds ARE true. Cable lines can have a lot more bandwidth, especially since cable providers are going to a more "selective" cable system, which means that not all the channels are being sent to your TV at the same time. You choose, it's there. Also, with DOCSIS 3.0 being certified, cable systems can go up to 100Mbps, while the latest in copper technology is ADSL2+ and that can only reach 25Mbps. It's not regulations, it's because A) The 'Bells don't want to roll out ADSL2+, B) To get those speeds, you have to be crazy close to the CO (central office), C) They are pushing fiber (read: Verizon FiOS).

For U-Verse, AT&T use FTTN (fiber to the node), so basically that big beige "refrigerator," from there to your house is pure copper because they're too cheap to spend the money on fiber. Generally, you have 25Mbps of TV bandwidth, although if you have one HDTV, you're done on all the other TVs. You can get up to 6Mbps for your DSL line, but that still varies.

The main thing with DSL is that you are generally guaranteed your speeds. Now, that's not saying they don't have downtime, but cable speeds can go down dramatically during peak hours to less than DSL speeds. But if you like to download large files at night or BitTorrent (a.k.a. mainly a night owl) I'd say stick with cable.
 
zflauaus said:
I'm sorry. I... OCD stuff about the 2
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I think you missed the point.

While cable can be faster no one gets that extra speed.

For the same price level on both systems you get the same speed give or take.

50 bucks buys you in most markets around 6Mbits/s.

Dollar for dollar they are about the same. Who cares about max speed you can get with unlimited funds. The companies limit you to what you pay for.

Pay for 6Mbit cable and that is all they are going to allow you to have.
 
For me it came down to not having a land line and using my cell phone for all calls. Therefore I chose cable. I have a neighbor with DSL and he loves it. I don't think it's gonna matter one way or another for you.
 
Rodimus Prime said:
I think you missed the point.

While cable can be faster no one gets that extra speed.

For the same price level on both systems you get the same speed give or take.

50 bucks buys you in most markets around 6Mbits/s.

Dollar for dollar they are about the same. Who cares about max speed you can get with unlimited funds. The companies limit you to what you pay for.

Pay for 6Mbit cable and that is all they are going to allow you to have.
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Nobody gets that extra speed? Really? So why are there people in the "Post Your Connection" thread with 10Mbps cable connections? Or 15Mbps?

Yes, the companies do limit you to what you pay for. That's a common practice. And it's the same with DSL. Pay for 6Mbps, you get 6Mbps.
 
zflauaus said:
Nobody gets that extra speed? Really? So why are there people in the "Post Your Connection" thread with 10Mbps cable connections? Or 15Mbps?

Yes, the companies do limit you to what you pay for. That's a common practice. And it's the same with DSL. Pay for 6Mbps, you get 6Mbps.
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right. the point I was trying to make was dollar for dollar you get the same speeds.

For most of us we are not going to be paying for much over 6Mbps.
 
I've had both DSL and cable, and here is what I found:

DSL is only as good as your phone lines. If you live in a place where the line quality is poor, your DSL service will be erratic. Unfortunately, you won't know whether your service will be consistent until you've had it for a while.

The same is true of cable, but I have found it to be more consistent in terms of providing the purchased bandwidth level. I will be very interested to see if this remains the case when all TV content is delivered digitally.

But here's the most important fact, IMO: bandwidth isn't tremendously important. The distance and the number of hops between you and the server you're trying to reach matters more, real world, than the theoretical throughput represented by bandwidth numbers.
 
IJ Reilly said:
But here's the most important fact, IMO: bandwidth isn't tremendously important. The distance and the number of hops between you and the server you're trying to reach matters more, real world, than the theoretical throughput represented by bandwidth numbers.
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Not to mention the fact that many sites are also still hosted on T1s so nothing over 1.5 Mbps matters unless you're simultaneously downloading massive content from many sites. This is why websurfing on poor 802.11b at 2 Mbps doesn't feel so horrible.

B
 
jessica. said:
Would the answer be different if it were for two girls?
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Oh, that's good. My laugh for today. :)

balamw said:
Not to mention the fact that many sites are also still hosted on T1s so nothing over 1.5 Mbps matters unless you're simultaneously downloading massive content from many sites. This is why websurfing on poor 802.11b at 2 Mbps doesn't feel so horrible.

B
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True story. But even service from fast sites is dependent on all the other servers in between. If you've got 20 hops between you and them, you're only going to see a trickle through that big pipe.
 
jessica. said:
Would the answer be different if it were for two girls?
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I guess what I was trying to say, as far as bandwidth is concerned more would be used for two people. But your joke cracked me up. I guess though it could be different because guys may download more porn though I have met chicks who own way more porn than I do.

Though my brother and I aren't moving in together, I found a one bedroom that I like and is cheaper and he isn't good with keeping a job and so I figured it wasn't a good idea to move in with him into a two bedroom so I will get to use all the bandwidth for my own use.
 
Duff-Man says...as has been said already, there really is no proper answer here except for "it depends." Without doing some specific testing on the cable and phone lines in your home you can't get a concrete reliable reply from anyone here.

I've used both DSL and cable in *both* my places (Victoria and Abq) and in each cases cable has worked out better (yes, even though it was Comcast!) but with even minor local variances it could just as easily been the other way around...oh yeah!
 
I have cable (3MB/s) and an AEBS with 802.11n that connects my iMac and MacBook to the internet and I can download/upload on Transmission and surf on my MacBook and I do not notice any difference in speed. That's about as close I get to having two users though as I'm the only one that uses my computers. But yea I think a major deciding factor besides how many people are on your line is the company offering the service.
 
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