Re: DSL vs. Cable

From: Lem (lemp40_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 01/08/05 

Date: Sat, 08 Jan 2005 16:08:46 -0500

I totally agree with JW and Crusty. For the most part, the higher
speeds touted by Cable are illusory -- your perceived performance is
limited, more often than not, by the crowded state of the Net today, and
in particular the capability and net connection of the server to which
you are trying to connect, rather than your own broadband connection. I
have DSL at home and a T3 line at work, and there are plenty of websites
that load just as slowly from both locations.

To me, service and reliability are far more important than theoretical
download speeds. I realize that neither local telco's or cable
operators have particularly sterling reputations, but I'd rather deal
with the phone guy than the cable guy.

As usual, it all depends on what you're likely to use your service for.
  If you're going to be downloading a lot of very large files from
servers with very fast, reliable, and uncrowded connections to the web,
then go for the fasted connection you can get, which almost certainly is
cable. Otherwise, go for the ISP that offers the best combination of
price and reliability.

JW wrote:
> at some extreme point, isn't talking about 3 Mega bps vs. 1.5 Mega bps
> very similar to talking to the audio expert at the home theater store
> who says, "If you can afford it, it would better to buy ABC brand
> speakers than XYZ brand speakers, because XYZ brand has 0.005% THD and
> ABC brand has less than 0.003% THD." It is totally hilarious from the
> perspective of an outside observer who knows what THD means, and knows
> that neither one of them can hear a 3000 hertz frequency, much less hear
> the difference between 0.005% THD and 0.003% THD.
>
> the point in this case how much does 3 Mega bps vs. 1.5 Mega bps really
> affect any result that i care about ? if i spend hours playing online
> war games, or often download files that take over 2 minutes to download,
> then i would want the fastest speed possible. but if i spend most of my
> time with a word processor, email program, online chat, and surfing web
> pages, like over 90% of home users do, then i have to ask myself, "How
> much does download speed even matter ? Does it matter if the web page
> takes a whopping 0.2 seconds to display instead of the much faster 0.02
> seconds to display ?"
>
> if it really mattered to me, then i would fork up the extra $20 a month,
> in order to kill my enemies online faster than they can kill me. but
> since i don't use my PC like a PlayStation, i save $20 a month, and can
> barely see the difference in how fast the web page displays. and when i
> play music, what does it matter if my JBL speakers have 0.001% greater
> THD, if i cannot hear the difference ?
>
>
> John wrote:
>
>> I hope this is the right group or someone can point me. I am trying to
>> get some accurate information on this choice I have. I see TV adds
>> that say Verizon DSL is faster than cable. What would be the benefits
>> of one over the other for a home PC and home network of maybe 4 or 5
>> systems. I have a cable modem and wireless-G BB router
>> W/SpeedBooster(whatever that means) on Comcast BB now. I am looking
>> for a package including cell and cable TV and ISP that could possibly
>> save me a few dollars a month. I have the Verizon DSL package here and
>> can install it for a evaluation period but I am hesitating is this
>> installation will be more trouble than it is worth. I don't want to
>> waste time and screw up my BB configuration and wonder if one system
>> can be used with both connections at once and make comparisons or
>> should I just forget about DSL and stick with Comcast BB.
>> Thanks for any insight.
>>
>> J.
>>

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