DSL, Cable modems, and other services ... which to choose?

[losttoy]

I have been using a dail-up to conect with the internet. Right now I do not have to pay for it, but it is slow. I have a 56K modem, but I can only get about 32K tops when connecting. The phone lines are just slow no matter how fast my modem is.

I have been battling in a debate of cost vs. speed. I am begining to think I am going to have to get some kind of DSL or cable modem set-up soon. So which should I get? Which has better quality? Which is faster? Which is cheeper? Which is the best value?
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[Surlyben]

I'd say go with whatever is cheapest in your area, unless you want to run your own server (in which case DSL), or you have some political objection to the company offerring the service (ie, you hate those bastards at the cable company, or whatever).

In my case, I hate those bastards at the phone company as much as I hate those bastards at the cable company, and Covad was just not available where I live. So I went with cable because those bastards at the phone company demanded I have a land line installed before they would hook up the DSL. I told them that I didn't live in the 19th century, and that they could give me a landline phone when they pried it into my cold, dead hands. The cable modem works out to something like $50-70 less per month than I would spend for an equivilently speedy DSL. Upload speeds are much lower, but I don't spend much time uploading things, and I don't run a server.

One other thing is that in my experience, the cable guys are often much faster getting you hooked up than the DSL guys, but YMMV.
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[Greg Stephens]

I'm no expert, so my advice is similar to Surlyben's- Go with what's in your area and cheaper.

But since he provided anecdotal evidence that cable has advantages, I'll chip in with my anecdotal evidence that DSL is also a good way to go. My service didn't require anybody to come set up- the existing phone lines were enough- and was activated several days before the ETA they gave.

The absolute best thing about either DSL or cable- beyond the speed increase- is that it's on all the time and it doesn't tie up your phone line. Either way you go, you'll be happy you did.
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[Rip Tanion]

I'm glad to know that I'm not the only malcontent who hates his cable company. I refuse to give my penny-ante cable company one more dime until they get me the YES Network. Even so, I hear cable-modem can get tied up if you live in a high-rise building, like I do. A friend of mine's sister lives across the street fom me and has cable modem service form the afore mentioned crappy cable company, and she says it isn't nearly as fast as promised.

What really cheeses me off is that I live in the city, and I still can't DSL in my neighborhood; but my parents, who moved up to the boondocks of Rockland County several years ago, have it. Everytime I go up there, I'm blown away by the download speed. I also uploaded a few files to my web site, while I was up there a couple of weeks ago, and that went pretty fast, too.

If you're stuck with dial-up, like me, there are several services which will foward your calls to voice mail, so you don't tie up your phone line while on the web.
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[Eric F Myers]

I've been using a cable modem for about a year now. I've never had any problems with speed, downloads and uploads are pretty fast (it's my PC that can't handle the pressure). The price is not bad, only about $30 a month on top of our basic cable bill. We liked it so much that we got rid of our phone line all together and went with IP telephony from Vonage. My only complaint would be that the Internet goes down Sunday morning around 2am for about an hour every week (I assume to clear the lines).
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[Tim Mallos]

I've had good luck with Comcast cable as my ISP.

The thing about cable systems (not sure about DSL) is that they are a shared bandwidth kinda thing. So, if a lot of users are active in your area your speed could be dinged. Although, I have not had any troubles even at peak usage times.

BTW- (At least with a cable modem) Buy a firewall for security reasons. My little Linksys firewall/router has been great. $50 well spent.

Tim
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[Rip Tanion]

[Guest]

DSL doesnt have that problem. And it's the year 2004, only hermits, hippies, and backwoods hillbillies should be still using a dial-up.

[William G]

I agree with this person. Mostly because it was me and I forgot to login.
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[Rip Tanion]

[losttoy]