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Luca
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: Minnesota
 
2008-03-06, 12:27

I'm moving into that new place tomorrow (yes, I decided to go for it despite the lack of window bars) and I figure I had better get my internet service set up. At my parents' house, we have Qwest DSL because it's the only option, but it is quite slow at only about 1.5 Mbps. A friend of mine, on the other hand, has Comcast cable internet and it's incredibly quick. I actually love going to his house because it's so fast.

So I'm thinking that, now that I'll be living in the city and getting my own internet service, I should go for cable. Comcast sells 12-16 Mbit packages for $43-$53 a month. I haven't looked at other ISPs yet.

My only concern here is that cable might be slower in the city than way out in the far suburbs (which is where both my parents live and where my friend lives). The same thing that makes my family's DSL slow (distance) is what makes his cable fast (lack of competing internet connections). Is that true? Would cable internet slow down at peak times, and would DSL be faster in the city than in the country? Also, what ISPs should I look at other than Comcast? I've heard mixed reports about them.
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Eugene
careful with axes
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Hillsborough, CA
 
2008-03-06, 13:14

HSI and HDTV over cable requires immaculate SNR and signal strength, so living in a rural area is of no benefit. It usually means cable companies will have a tougher time getting permission to perform upgrades in the area as clueless city/town officials strike down their requests.

Big cities will have better infrastructure, period. Better node density and probably upgraded amps, taps, wiring, etc.

And as for choice, it's highly unlikely that there will be one. Most cable service maps do not overlap.
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Dorian Gray
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Paris, France
 
2008-03-06, 13:14

Quote:
Originally Posted by Luca
...yes, I decided to go for it despite the lack of window bars...
Good stuff. No point in living your life in fear or making your home a prison, in my opinion.

I've had DSL and cable internet in the past, and I generally prefer DSL because:
  • measured upload speeds were always substantially faster with DSL than cable (this may not be a technology issue, but it has always been true in my experience, so check the real-world upload speeds if you can)
  • although service does slow at peak times with DSL, it does so to a much more annoying extent with cable
  • my cable internet had noticeably more unexplained downtime than DSL
  • generally, cable providers promised the world and failed to deliver, while DSL providers came closer to giving what they advertised, meaning my actual internet experience was better with DSL.
But I wouldn't be surprised if my experiences have nothing to do with the relative technologies and everything to do with the ISPs involved.

… engrossed in such factional acts as dreaming different dreams.
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Eugene
careful with axes
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Hillsborough, CA
 
2008-03-06, 13:31

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorian Gray View Post

But I wouldn't be surprised if my experiences have nothing to do with the relative technologies and everything to do with the ISPs involved.
Right now the only major service that can compete with Comcast's throughput is Verizon FIOS, and their footprint is very small in comparison.

For a rough idea of what kind of speeds are available from each service...

http://forums.applenova.com/showthread.php?t=21273
http://forums.applenova.com/showthread.php?t=27402
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Luca
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Join Date: May 2004
Location: Minnesota
 
2008-03-06, 13:35

Yeah, I am strongly considering DSL as well. Been doing a little research on my lunch break and saw that people are getting better customer service and less downtime from DSL providers, and they're less likely to throttle your speeds if you use a lot of bandwidth.

The main reason I was considering cable over DSL is because I didn't want to get stuck with the same slow DSL that my parents have. Supposedly it's 1.5/768, but it usually seems slower. But I guess, if I'm in the city, it won't be nearly that bad.

Oh, and I'd LOVE to get FiOS, but it's not available of course.
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bassplayinMacFiend
Banging the Bottom End
 
Join Date: Jun 2004
 
2008-03-06, 13:55

I'd love FiOS but am in the same boat (no availability). My biggest complaint with my Comcast cable internet is the upload speed is capped at 384Kbps. This means I can't host Xbox 360 games because I'm usually in a room of 16-18 people.

Also, their "SpeedBoost" will trick programs that check bandwidth because they allow the first minute up/download to go at unchecked speeds, then they put in the limiter. This can really screw with online gaming because COD4 checks bandwidth to see who is the best host, but if it picks a Comcast person, after the first minute or so of a match, everyone lags to death.

Other than this, it's been pretty reliable. I have run into issues of it going down when it gets over 90F for a few days (don't know why but it's definitely heat related as this is the only time it happens).
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alcimedes
I shot the sherrif.
 
Join Date: May 2004
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2008-03-06, 13:58

Quote:
Originally Posted by bassplayinMacFiend View Post
Also, their "SpeedBoost" will trick programs that check bandwidth because they allow the first minute up/download to go at unchecked speeds, then they put in the limiter. This can really screw with online gaming because COD4 checks bandwidth to see who is the best host, but if it picks a Comcast person, after the first minute or so of a match, everyone lags to death.
Ok, if that is true that's downright dirty on their part.
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Eugene
careful with axes
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Hillsborough, CA
 
2008-03-06, 14:17

Quote:
Originally Posted by alcimedes View Post
Ok, if that is true that's downright dirty on their part.
It's not that dirty when you think about how many files you download take less than 10s to do so. This is especially true in apps like BitTorrent clients which chop up your downloads into tiny <1MB morsels. It almost makes me cry tears of happiness being able to sustain 400KB/s upstream via BT.

I have zero complaints about PowerBoost and my upload was never limited to 384kbps...that's just one tier. There's a 8000/768kbps tier available pretty much anywhere and the 16000/2000 tier is available many places now.
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bassplayinMacFiend
Banging the Bottom End
 
Join Date: Jun 2004
 
2008-03-06, 15:34

Unfortunately, those aren't available in my area. I was in the first US market to get cable internet (late '97) so maybe the infrastructure isn't as new here as it is in other markets. People I know in the Atlanta area, for example, all have >800Kbps upload speed on the $46/month plan.
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Dorian Gray
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Paris, France
 
2008-03-07, 03:30

Quote:
Originally Posted by Eugene
It almost makes me cry tears of happiness being able to sustain 400KB/s upstream via BT.
Nice!

My cable service never managed more than about 50 KB/s upload, and at peak times it was considerably worse. With DSL I usually got 100-200 KB/s and that was available pretty much anytime. Hard to go back to 50 KB/s when you're used to 3x or 4x times that. Peak download speeds were a bit higher with cable, though speeds went down the toilet at peak times.

Sounds like the US cable infrastructure is a more advanced than what we have in the UK. I'm now in France and I have DSL, and although getting it installed was a time-consuming hassle, and customer service is non-existent, the technology itself works very well indeed. I get around 2 MB/s download and 150-200 KB/s upload, which is the best home internet I've had so far. Not the cheapest in the world though, at 35 euros/month. It includes digital TV and free calls to landlines, neither of which I want, but which are included in most tariffs here to "justify" the prices.

… engrossed in such factional acts as dreaming different dreams.
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Eugene
careful with axes
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Hillsborough, CA
 
2008-03-07, 04:40

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorian Gray View Post
Sounds like the US cable infrastructure is a more advanced than what we have in the UK. I'm now in France and I have DSL, and although getting it installed was a time-consuming hassle, and customer service is non-existent, the technology itself works very well indeed. I get around 2 MB/s download and 150-200 KB/s upload, which is the best home internet I've had so far. Not the cheapest in the world though, at 35 euros/month. It includes digital TV and free calls to landlines, neither of which I want, but which are included in most tariffs here to "justify" the prices.
9 years ago I contacted the local telco and tried to order DSL first, but my house was too far from a central office. The only option was Excite@Home. With @Home the upstream was capped to 128kbps, but the downstream was basically uncapped. I frequently pulled movie trailers from apple.com at 600+ KB/s...in 1999. That's faster than a lot of people have today, and in an area that was unserviceable by any DSL provider.

The fastest DSL package available in my area runs 6000/768kbps for $35/mo., but I'm still not sure if I can get it at this address...and I live in the middle of "Silicon Valley."
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Capella
Dark Cat of the Sith
 
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Rochester, NY
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2008-03-07, 09:26

I have mixed experiences with DSL and cable: in Florida my DSL was better, but in NJ the cable is ridiculous. RIDICULOUS.

In my small town, the best that DSL offered used to be 3000/256kbps, and I usually got most of that. Meanwhile, my friends had cable, which was cheaper and yet claimed to be 6000 down, and I don't remember the upload. They never EVER got that- not in rural areas and not in the center of town. Meanwhile, I was consistently downloading quite nicely. They would also get bad slowdown at busy times.

But then I moved to NJ and discovered Optimum, and damn was I impressed. I don't know the exact stats of what my partner has- I believe it's "30 Mbps for downloads and up to 5Mbps for uploads." according to Optimum's site. It's never been down while I was there, it's always been ridiculously fast, I've never seen a slowdown. We can host ridiculous Jedi Academy games (I've seen an 8 person game with no trouble multiple times.) It's absolutely fantastic and kudos to Cablevision. Rutgers uses them too I believe. Whenever I go home I feel so sad to go back to 3.

"A blind, deaf, comatose, lobotomy patient could feel my anger!" - Darth Baras
twitter ; amateur photographer ; fanfiction writer ; roleplayer and worldbuilder
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Schnauzer
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Arizona
 
2008-03-07, 10:18

I have COX cable internet and it works great. Only had two or three downtimes over a time of about 6 years. The speed it great, upload is about 512 but download is huge. I would give you an exact number for it but I am not at home right now. DSL where I live sucks, bad. My friend has it and it is pretty much always on dial-up. It likes to disconnect alot too.

If you can read this this, please send to an admin, i am blocked and cant post....
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PB PM
Sneaky Punk
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Vancouver, BC
Send a message via Skype™ to PB PM 
2008-03-07, 10:21

I guess it depends on the provider. In my experience DSL is very slow (with comparable speed offerings/price wise) than cable. I've been using cable internet since 1998, and it was a little dicey in the late 90's, but now the service is good and the speed seems to be stable all the time. Peek hours don't seem to effect the speed here.

I think the big issue is who the ISP is, and how they provide the service, rather than one really being better than the other.
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Luca
ಠ_ರೃ
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Minnesota
 
2008-03-07, 10:30

I ended up going with Qwest's 7 Mbit DSL. Not the cheapest, and probably not as fast as Comcast, but I've heard way too many horror stories about "Comcrap" as people like to call it. I'll get a better upload speed and hopefully a more consistent, reliable connection. I've never had many disconnects with Qwest (I've used Qwest for four years at two different locations), but through some research at broadbandreports.com I found that quite a lot of people have frequent disconnects with Comcast. The other thing is that Comcast apparently throttles you down if you use too much bandwidth (though I'm sure Qwest does too).

Another thing about Qwest is that I know I can cancel whenever I want, so if I decide on something else, it's not a big deal to switch.
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zippy
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Unknown
 
2008-03-07, 10:52

I'll be very interested to hear how your experience with Qwest's 7Mbps DSL is over the long term. That's not available here yet, so I went with cable (Bresnan) when I decided to upgrade.

I previously had a 256 Kbps DSL from Qwest, and I was having to re-boot my modem about once a week or more - which was quite a pain in the butt since it is in the basement and the Mac is upstairs. I could have changed that setup, but that would just add too much extra clutter to the setup upstairs, and I would have had to get a wireless card for the basement PC.

The deal I got was a combination Internet+digital phone+cable TV service at a lower rate for the first 12 months. I'm not sure if I will want to keep all of those services after the 12 months, so if Qwest's 7 Mbps DSL is available by then, I may consider a switch - their advertised price is cheaper than the stand-alone cable price here.

Do you know where children get all of their energy? - They suck it right out of their parents!
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