DSL versus Cable ISP's

[ShadowHM]

I have had a cable connection for some time now. For most of that time, I enjoyed a stable and fast connection.

Of late, however, I am getting very (very) poor connections on some evenings. For all the surfing and downloading I do, I could still be with a dial-up connection; my main reason for wanting a fast and stable connection has been my desire to play on Battle.net. Hence, this loss of evening playability is very irksome, as that is when my friends come out to play. Of particular annoyance is the loss of connection on the two evenings a week when I play in team games. Since they are far more fun than any other games, not being able to participate in them is most distressing.

My ISP (Rogers Cable) has not been able to give me any form of permanent fix on this. I have had many discussions with the tech support group. They rarely are able to make any difference right away. And, the next morning, I am back to my desired speed - which lasts until about 9:00 p.m.

I lack the language to be able to discuss this issue clearly with tech support.

Would the Lurkers please give me a basis for discussion? I need to understand what differences there are between DSL and Cable connections, what kinds of obstacles each might encounter on the internet in completing my connection to USWest and what, if any, negative sides there might be to DSL, should I switch ISP's.

I have been reluctant to make a change, just because of the hassle of changing my address. (There is also the small matter of losing discounts from the cable company that also provides my television channels.) And the cable connection, when it is good, is very very good. Unfortunately, when it is bad, it is awful. <_<

[Darian]

Would the Lurkers please give me a basis for discussion?&nbsp; &nbsp; I need to understand what differences there are between DSL and Cable connections, what kinds of obstacles each might encounter on the internet in completing my connection to USWest and what, if any, negative sides there might be to DSL, should I switch ISP's.
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I've been on DSL for five years now, with Verizon. In those five years, there have been a grand total of eight HOURS that I've dropped connection. Six of those hours were in one chunk when they lost a piece of hardware in their data center, and the other two hours were temporary outages when the vestiges of hurricanes blew through here last summer and interrupted actual phone service.

The chief advantage to cable over DSL is simply speed. If you don't engage in a lot of heavy downloading of Very Large Files, there's no benefit at all outside of any financial benefit you get from package deals offered by your cable company. The consensus among folks I work with* who have used both is "Cable's way faster, but DSL is far more reliable."

And, of course, with DSL, although your pipe is smaller, that pipe is ALL yours. With cable, your download speeds can actually drop below DSL download speeds if your neighborhood gets particularly busy (and TV-watching counts toward the total available bandwidth).

* - And we work for a company which effectively re-sells both cable and DSL, so we don't have a horse in this race.

[Occhidiangela]

I have had a cable connection for some time now.&nbsp; For most of that time, I enjoyed a stable and fast connection.

Of late, however, I am getting very (very) poor connections on some evenings.&nbsp; For all the surfing and downloading I do, I could still be with a dial-up connection;&nbsp; my main reason for wanting a fast and stable connection has been my desire to play on Battle.net.&nbsp; Hence, this loss of evening playability is very irksome, as that is when my friends come out to play.&nbsp; &nbsp; Of particular annoyance is the loss of connection on the two evenings a week when I play in team games.&nbsp; &nbsp; Since they are far more fun than any other games, not being able to participate in them is most distressing.

My ISP (Rogers Cable) has not been able to give me any form of permanent fix on this.&nbsp; I have had many discussions with the tech support group.&nbsp; &nbsp; They rarely are able to make any difference right away.&nbsp; &nbsp; And, the next morning, I am back to my desired speed - which lasts until about 9:00 p.m.

I lack the language to be able to discuss this issue clearly with tech support.&nbsp;

Would the Lurkers please give me a basis for discussion?&nbsp; &nbsp; I need to understand what differences there are between DSL and Cable connections, what kinds of obstacles each might encounter on the internet in completing my connection to USWest and what, if any, negative sides there might be to DSL, should I switch ISP's.

I have been reluctant to make a change, just because of the hassle of changing my address.&nbsp; (There is also the small matter of losing discounts from the cable company that also provides my television channels.)&nbsp; And the cable connection, when it is good, is very very good.&nbsp; Unfortunately, when it is bad, it is awful.&nbsp; &nbsp; <_<
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DSL Speeds meet the Good Enough Standard for Diablo II. Bnet then becomes, as usual, the irritant. Darian's point on "you share with no one" hits home. I dropped SBC DSL after I got it, I could not connect to bnet. It took a year or so to realize that my real problem was in fact my brand new PC's 10/100 card, made by Belkin. POS. With a DLINK . . . no probs. But my irritation finally resulted in going to Cable by Roadrunner. It too is a bundled package with TV. I too have significant trouble with speeds during certain peak periods. My discussions with Tech Support have been most enlightening. Had I paid more for a Static IP . . . or a dedicated IDSL line . . . I might have fewer problems. That then becomes a "how much is one willing to pay for this capability" decision.

Occhi

[ShadowHM]

And, of course, with DSL, although your pipe is smaller, that pipe is ALL yours.&nbsp; With cable, your download speeds can actually drop below DSL download speeds if your neighborhood gets particularly busy (and TV-watching counts toward the total available bandwidth).


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*gulp*

So when the Good Shows™ fire up at 9:00 p.m. and my neighbours settle in for viewing - that contributes to taking my connection down to a crawl?

*starts reviewing the shows that come on at that time slot on my team game nights*

Damn!

[Treesh]

And, of course, with DSL, although your pipe is smaller, that pipe is ALL yours.&nbsp; With cable, your download speeds can actually drop below DSL download speeds if your neighborhood gets particularly busy (and TV-watching counts toward the total available bandwidth).

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Depends upon what company is providing the service. Ours used to have the shared pipeline, but then when the techies in town got angry and vocal about it, that practice stopped. Now what we pay for is what we get, regardless of what other people (including us watching tv) are doing.

ShadowHM> If you do decide to use DSL do NOT go with Sprint. They had/have the flakiest connection I have ever had to put up with. I'd rather run on dialup than go back to Sprint DSL. Far too expensive (they tax you like you wouldn't believe, at least here in Missouri they do) and far too unreliable.

[Yrrek]

Shadow,

Cable modems are on "always on" connection. Because the information is sent across the already present coaxial cable for your TV, the bandwidth is shared. So the more people on the line at the same time, the less bandwidth you have. If you have neighbors who use a cable modem also, then they are sapping your bandwidth during times of high activity when everyone is online. As you can tell, when noone is on the line but you, the modem is blazingly fast. But during the peak times, it sucks.

DSL is good because it has high bandwidth, and is a dedicated line to your house, so you aren't sharing bandwidth with anyone else. The only downside would be to gain the same speeds as your cable modem, you will probably pay out the wazzoo for the higher-end DSL services.

Really go with what you can afford, they are both good, but both have draw backs.

Howstuffworks.com will have more in-depth information.

[Alram]

I have no problems with my cable--lucky I guess. I have installed SBC Yahoo DSL for 3 different people. If you are not careful they put spyware on your machine. You need to refuse all optional software during the installation and then opt out of all spam at their website.

[Quark]

Just chiming in that the shared bandwidth hasn't been an issue for me on cable at all. It sounds like that's the exact issue you're running into, and if is, I'd drop it for DSL not because DSL is innately better but simply because your company isn't doing it's job.

[Darian]

I have no problems with my cable--lucky I guess.&nbsp; I have installed SBC Yahoo DSL for 3 different people. If you are not careful they put spyware on your machine. You need to refuse all optional software during the installation and then opt out of all spam at their website.
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Actually, you need to "buy a router and don't install their software at all." ;)

[gekko]

You may want to check with people in your area who have whatever DSL you'd be switching to. I know that we have cable, but I now wish we'd gone with DSL. People I know who live just down the block get far superior connections, all the time. The problem here seems to be that when the high speed internet craze started, the vast majority of people went to cable. So while cable speeds can theoretically get higher than the local DSL, it never happens. So I fluctuate between just a little slower and much slower. That being said, I have no major problems with my connections -- never as bad as you're describing.

So again, my advice would be to check with some people locally -- preferably someone in the same area with similar online habbits to your own, who happens to be on DSL. Based on that evidence, decide if it's worth the hassle amd cost of switching over.

gekko

[jahcs]

I don't believe this is an isolated problem ShadowHM. My cable provider, Comcast, slows way down around 6pm PST (9pm EST). Most of the time it will take between 3 and 10 tries to load Comcast's home page, or even the Google home page, one of the fastest loading websites I've ever seen.

This all started 2 or 3 weeks ago. Before that I had extremely fast connections around the clock. As an example, this Sunday I downloaded a file of 768MB in less than 20 minutes in the early afternoon. I can barely connect to websites during the week between 6pm and 9pm PST.

I have friends across the country and they are all complaining about speeds between 6pm and 8pm PST. Most of them use Comcast.

The strange part is I can still connect to my online game, Black Hawk Down, and my Ventrilio voice program almost without trouble, even during the period of slowdown.

I have thought about going DSL over the last week or so because of the problems. My phone company, Qwest, offers 2 DSL plans in my area:

$44.99 a month:
Qwest Choice™ DSL Deluxe with MSN® Premium
Up to 1.5 Mbps download/
Up to 896 Kbps upload

$31.99 a month
Qwest Choice™ DSL with MSN® Premium
Up to 256 Kbps download/
Up to 256 Kbps upload

My current cable plan, through Comcast is $45.95 a month, including the $3.00 modem fee. Here's the fine print:
Maximum download speed of 4Mbps (or 6 Mbps) and upload speeds of 384Kbps (or 768Kbps) depending on the product that is selected. Increased speeds not yet available in all areas. Actual speeds may vary and are not guaranteed. Many factors affect download speed.
Last time I rated my connection I had about 2.7Mbps at about 10:30pm on a weekday -- before this evening slowdown thing started.


BTW Comcast really started pushing their OnDemand service about the time this connection issue started.

[ShadowHM]

So again, my advice would be to check with some people locally -- preferably someone in the same area with similar online habits to your own, who happens to be on DSL.&nbsp; Based on that evidence, decide if it's worth the hassle amd cost of switching over.

gekko
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*grins*

Now do you really think I should let all the neighbours know that I am a monster-slayer in the evenings? :unsure:

There are not a lot of teenagers in the neighbourhood; they would be my best source of information. It is worth a try, though. Thanks for the suggestion.

[gekko]

*grins*

Now do you really think I should let all the neighbours know that I am a monster-slayer in the evenings?&nbsp; &nbsp; :unsure:&nbsp;

There are not a lot of teenagers in the neighbourhood; they would be my best source of information.&nbsp; It is worth a try, though.&nbsp; Thanks for the suggestion.
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Yeah, as I was typing my previous response, I had a vision of you signing on to msn messenger and typing something like "hey guyz, i wana get dsl..... u guyz hav ny problemz w/ bnet on dsl?" Made me laugh.

You should try going in disguise. Wear a baseball cap sideways, the whole backwards basketball jersey, low hanging pants with the boxer shorts sticking out, and go to the local high school. You may even get some information before the cops bust you under suspicion of drug trafficking.

gekko

[Yrrek]

Actually, you need to "buy a router and don't install their software at all."&nbsp; ;)
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Agreed.

[LochnarITB]

You might want to look through BBR to see if they provide any info that would help.

For my experience, I started with DSL from the local phone company, Qwest. I initially went with DSL because of the issue of shared -vs- single pipe. I was tickled pink with it in the beginning. I couldn't imagine ever needing anything faster. However, after a couple years, I started having slowdowns, disconnects and extended outages. They blamed equipment and threw a couple modems at it. I worked with them to try to regain the excellent connection I had had at one point. It finally got to where I couldn't count on the connection, I couldn't get hold of support when things went out at odd hours and, even working through my ISP (who could see the problems on the connection) could not get any resolution. I dropped them and went with RoadRunner cable. I was amazed at how much faster it was (approx. 6 times faster and they now offer a connection with twice my speed). I never experienced a slow down, short of an outage, that wasn't fixed by rebooting the modem (they do glitch at times for whatever reason). Maybe I am just lucky and don't have other big users in my area. (I don't know if I believe the pipe being shared with TV watching. For normal TV, it is my understanding that the digital information is layered onto the analog TV signal. Digital TV might be shared pipe though.) I have, however, had 2 or 3 outages that lasted approximately 24 hours. These were a little frustrating. Not only did I want to be on (playing WoW :blush: ) but they wanted to blame it on local hardware. They did clear up without intervention on this end so something had to have been reset on their end. This was not enough to send me back to DSL though.

Bottom line, both types of connections are good options. Cable is preferable only if you expect massive file downloads. The real decision needs to be based on the perceived quality of the two providers and what you can expect from their technical support. If your current provider can't provide reasons that you can understand and resolve your problems, it might be worth the switch to get better tech support.

[Rinnhart]

Lochnar's experiences with ol' Qwest mirror my own... but Comcast is the Great Satan. I'd take the at-least-it's-better-than-dial-up over the daily 2-3 hour periods of non-connectivity.

[DeeBye]

You might want to look through BBR to see if they provide any info that would help.
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This is about the best advice so far. Check that link out. They have forums dedicated to ISPs in your area. I suspect dumping Rogers and going with local DSL is your best bet.

That being said, I use Rogers.com as my ISP and I have zero complaints. My ping on B.net is a solid 75-150 (200 max once in awhile) no matter the time of day, and the reliability is better than I ever had when I used Bell Sympatico. I guess Rogers in London is better than Rogers in Toronto :(

[loonygloss]

Actually, you need to "buy a router and don't install their software at all."&nbsp; ;)
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Absolutely. I picked up a cheap Billion brand 7100S router when I got DSL. Has no connectors other than an RJ12 port for the phone and an Ethernet port for the computer. Does DHCP for me, and is configurable through a web interface. No drivers, and a far better solution when you are wanting to share a connection between computers or get a Linux server running.

[SpazBear]

Another problem with DSL is the rise of VoIP. Phone companies don't have a big incentive to give you a reliable, zippy DSL connection, if you're just going to use that connection for all your long-distance calling.

Unless you're bundling DSL service with their long-distance plans (ala Frontier "Choices"), don't expect top-shelf DSL service from your phone provider.