DSL Vs Cable

I have DSL. According to tests, I get about 1 meg every 17.5 seconds. Is this decent for DSL? Or would I get better connection from a cable modem?

hey wise, welcome to the forums

that's a pretty decent speed...

that translates to about 60KB a sec.

it's really hard to say if cable would be better or not. each website you download from can give you different results.

my cable connection, i can often times transfer around 360KB a second. but most all the sites i download from limit me to much, much lower. some sites i still get 5KB/sec transfers, while others are up around 50KB.

on the really fast sites (the ones i get 300KB/sec or more), it will also sometimes vary depending on what time of day it is (cause more people on cable=less bandwidth per person). so sometimes i can go to those fast sites and only get 200KB.

there are several things that factor into transfer rates.

1) your isp will limit you to a certain KB upload and download (actually they usually tell you in Kb, which is 1/8 of a KB).

2) with cable, you are subject to how many users are sharing your connection with you at the same time. (oftentimes relates to what time of day/night you use it, cause most people aren't up all night like some of us)

3) sometimes the cable company (and i assume dsl company, also) will experience technical problems and you will get lower than normal speeds, even at 3am.

4) the connection speed of the site you are downloading from.

that having been said:

most of the people's speeds i have seen, tend to lead me toward cable IN GENERAL having better transfer rates. that's not always the case, but it seems to be most of the time.

Thanks. I just got cable in my house. SO now that the price for cable will be that of a standard cable suscriber, I am thinking of swicthing. Most of my online time is at night. I usually leave my computer on all night downloading. Other than that, I am just playing Everq Quest. Besides that, my one year contract with DSL will end this month, which means they can raise my price to $49.99 instead of $39.99, which would make Cable cheaper.


(Side Note)
Why does everyone have to make .99? $39.99. Just chearge me the freakn $40 and get it over with

Check out www.dslreports.com to see how the services stack up in your neighborhood and also get a decent speed test to see how you stack up.

Cable is faster, but it has it's draw backs also. It depends on who you have for a provider and what speed packages are available/affordable.
I'm on Time Warner Road Runner and they have us capped at 2000 down and 384 up (kbps). Out of this and on my node, I'm getting a fairly consistent 1870 down and 361 up.

Im on cable right now and its be very bad for me for about 6 months now.......
always disconnecting while gaming, slow uploads, etc

I am going to be getting dsl tomarrow so maybe I will be able to play a good game of CS soon

my d/l is about 300kB u/l 28kB

if your town is just now getting it you should have a good connection like I did and thin once people join, your speed and stability will go WAY down

my dad has cable
he usually gets average about 300kb/s download and 100-200kb/s upload....its nice here in tulsa
we have cox cable right now

Right now I'm in the sticks and we have cable but only like 5 or 6 other houses are on my node....so says the AT&T Broadband service guy that came to do line loss tests. This is what probably is letting me get 2170kb/s downstream and about 370kb/s upstream.

If you don't mind the trouble, try out DSL and cable (if both are available in your area) and see which one yields the best performance. DSL and cable have so much variance in terms of "ideal" conditions to meet their suggested "optimal" speeds that you're essentially comparing apples to oranges.

I like cable although sometimes we have problems with not being ablr to get online. About once a month it will be down for a a day or two. That sucks. On that speed test I broke the 1000kbps barrier. Acording to them that's awesome!