cable vs ADSL

[leo]

which's better? :)

[gryphon]

depends on your demands for the internet connection. ...

[Atomic Mitten]

Well if you have a cable connection at 1 MB/s it's about twice as fast as an ADSL at 576KB/s

[leo]

Well if you have a cable connection at 1 MB/s it's about twice as fast as an ADSL at 576KB/s

lol its simple math atomic.

500*2=1000... ;D

[Atomic Mitten]

True ! so why did you ask  ?

[Timenn]

It may be different for where you live, but here in the Netherlands ADSL simply overrules cable in almost all aspects. Where cable speed in unstable, and a little bit faster then the normal ADSL connections. ADSL is also very stable, and has a superior upload speed. And ADSL speed is upgraded constantly, while cable still remains the same. They might do a upgrade for cable here soon, but ADSL will catch up with that quite soon thereafter.

From my own experience I would say that ADSL is definatily better.

[Andrew]

It all depends on where you live.

Where I live cable is much faster and easier to use than adsl.

[gryphon]

as adition to Timenn's post.

In the more populated areas here one of the DSL providers has to much overbooked lines .. resulting in slower network speeds. The same area has even worse cable connections. Where some part just drop from the net around 9 in the morning.

DSL can be upto 8MB where cable usually is around 2-4MB.

DSL is a dedicated line. . but then you have to dial-up to your provider. Cable is a always-on-network connection.

Where I live DSL is really auwfull. We are to far from the main distrubution centers to get a desent signal. And not many people are using cable. Resulting in me draining about half the bandwidth of the block.

[SurlyPIG]

Check out what's avalable in your area and compare them.  All I can really tell you that is universal is that...

Cable connections do not degrade over the distance your system is from the ISP, but cable connections become slower the more people there in your neighbourhood that have and use cable because the signals are split and shared.  However, if your average neighbourhood speed gets below a certain level, the cable company should provide some sort of solution, either by bringing more connections out or speeding it up with hardware.  An example of when cable is better...a friend or mine lives in a very small, isolated neighbourhood that's crammed beteen some pretty big hills.  There are ~50 homes, and though the neighbourhood has cable connections, few of the homes have cable internet.  He gets ridiculously fast downloads and I mean just absurd.  200+Mb program files download in a few seconds.

DSL speeds decay exponentially the further you are away from the ISP.  Like the cable, though, if it's too far away, the provider will usually bring some kind of relay out to get the speed up.

Usually, though, if you ask them, all ISPs will guarantee some sort of rock bottom speed.  Remember, though, that download speeds are only one half of internet activity.  Upload speeds vary between cable and DSL and between the different providers.  Usually they upload speeds are 1/2 or 1/4 the download speeds.

[Nyarlathotep]

Gryphon mentioned a important aspect... and that's overbooking. here in the Netherlands, the normal overbooking is close to 50%. Some have 25% though. Overbooking is done because the ISP has the following idea: Not everyone is using their connection at the same time, so why not overbook ? => Keep in mind that if everyone actually started to use their conn at the same time, they're fu... ehh... screwed.

It may be well worth to ask the overbooking rate before you decide what ISP to choose. I know in my area cable is hardly used anymore, hence why I still have cable (1.5mb down and 1 mb up) ;)