I am considering switching from cable to satellite dish. Don't worry, I have already sent PM's Maradon's way and plan to solicit his learned opinion.

Here's the deal -- my cable modem is currently $46 per month. If I dump cable and go to dish, they raise me up to $58 a month. It's still probably cheaper to switch, but perhaps not enough of a cost savings to go through the hassle.

Therefore, I am considering a switch to DSL from Comcast cable modem. Does anyone have thoughts on the pros versus cons? Recall that I do very little online gaming anymore, but I had good success with my cable modem. Please share thoughts k thx.

From my experience, Cable is much, much faster than DSL. A 512K/128K DSL line would've cost me 43 a month, and a 10M/1M cable line costs, like you, 46 a month. This is true, at least, where I live. If you download lots of media, that may be a consideration you'd want to...consider. Dammit!.

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When the babel fish was in place, it was apparent Karnaj said:
Hello back at ya!

From my experience, Cable is much, much faster than DSL. A 512K/128K DSL line would've cost me 43 a month, and a 10M/1M cable line costs, like you, 46 a month. This is true, at least, where I live. If you download lots of media, that may be a consideration you'd want to...consider. Dammit!.

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How do you get a 10M/1M cable line when cable caps at 1.54?

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Ever a paragon of knowledge, Reynar said:
How do you get a 10M/1M cable line when cable caps at 1.54?

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Beats me. When the guy ran the diagnostic after he installed it, it brought up a webpage which claimed maximum downstream at 10 megabits and max upstream at 1 megabit. Fastest I've downloaded something is a sustained 700Kb/s, so I'm not complaining.

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This insanity brought to you by Gydfather:
One consideration would be to stick with cable until a really awesome deal comes along.....

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Just depends how much bandwidth you think you need.

For me, 512k down and 128k up is more then enough for gaming and websurfing. Downloading on 512k is also plenty fast unless you know you're going to be handling files post 100 megs. DSL is nicer then cable in some respects because it's not capped at 1.54 like cable is. If you're close to your CO, you can get far beyond that.

But in the end, it all depends on if your provider sucks or not.

I think you'd be plenty happy with a moderate speed DSL, unless you do heavy filesharing.

Generally, how much do DSL lines run? Is 43 the usual? Because my cable modem will go up to 60 with tax because I am dumping my digital cable.

[ 09-18-2003: Message edited by: Gydfather ]

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Gydfather had this to say about Jimmy Carter:
I do no filesharing.

Generally, how much do DSL lines run? Is 43 the usual? Because my cable modem will go up to 60 with tax because I am dumping my digital cable.

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DSL is usually priced depending on how much maximum bandwidth you want. I've seen it range from $35 up to $80. Your best bet is to call the provider and ask for their pricing packages. You should be able to get a good down/up package in the range of $40.

I think the standard around here for 512/512 SDSL is about $45 a month.

DSL 768kbps up/down @45/month
Cable 1500kbps down/256kbps up @55ish? (I think, can't remember)
[less $10 if you have cable tv also.]

There are others out there, but basically, you will need to check with places near your house. Seems even 200 miles in a similar sized city, my brother can get 3-4000kbps downloads through his cable for $10 cheaper.

A few spots to look at: www.speakeasy.net heard a lot of good responses about their services.

For a general place that often times can give you some good comparisons: www.dslreports.com they provide more then just DSL. Just use the search at the top for your zipcode to get a general list of some providers and their costs/speeds.

[ 09-18-2003: Message edited by: Valso the WhiteDragon ]

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Maradon! had this to say about Captain Planet:
I forgot to mention, Gyd, my company has a partnership with Earthlink where we'll give you a $5 break off both your DSL bill and your Dish bill when you sign up for both.

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Boy howdy, that just might work!

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Karnaj Model 2000 was programmed to say:
From my experience, Cable is much, much faster than DSL. A 512K/128K DSL line would've cost me 43 a month, and a 10M/1M cable line costs, like you, 46 a month. This is true, at least, where I live. If you download lots of media, that may be a consideration you'd want to...consider. Dammit!.

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WHERE THE FUCK DO YOU LIVE?

TEN megabits down for $46/month? My GOD! That's an insanely good deal!

edit: standard price here is $45 for 1.5/256... both on cable and DSL. $80 a month for 3M/512 from Comcast.

[ 09-18-2003: Message edited by: Kegwen ]

I loved my comcast cable. LOVED it! I was so pissed when they said I had moved (less than half a mile) outside their service area.

Having gone from Cable to DSL I can safely say I personally think its worth the money to stay with Comcast. (especially for a *cough*lawyer*cough* ). I pay $13 less with DSL, but I really wish I could have my cablemodem instead.

Reasons:

1. This may be a small one to most people, but with comcast you were online the minute you turned on your computer. DSL I have to click a button and wait for it to load a bunch of crap before it puts me online. This could just as easily be a positive for DSL depending on your preferences. Me, it wastes time. Especially if I have to reboot my comp without shutting down first. This tacks on about another minute to waiting to get back online because my DSL didn't know I logged off and I have to wait for it to notice that fact.

2. My DSL LOVES to cut out for no reason. I'll just be typing along and bam, I get a message saying Internet unavailable. Usually it's back within 10 minutes, but this happens once every 2-3 days (and once it starts it usually cuts in and out for the next couple of hours) and gets really fucking annoying. Cable modem cuts out too and usually for a few hours at a time, but that only happened to me like once every two months not every 3 days.

3. Comcast won't try to shove unwanted software down your throat (GRRRR, I don't WANT a new frilly web browser! Get that yahoo browser crap outta here!). Note this may only be SBC's Yahoo DSL that does that but...my DSL put unwanted stuff all over my comp. Adding things to favorites I can't remove, things like that. Didn't even ask.

4. I Comcasts customer service. They always seemed to be on top of things and when there was a problem it was usually fixed within a day at the very most. They'd also be willing to help me with computer problems that technically weren't part of their service, like when I had one, getting my network working. DSL...I don't even feel like I can call them. They don't seem as friendly and they stick to only what they are supposed to do and that's it.

Here's a pro for DSL though. If you want multiple computers on a network you don't get charged a monthly fee for extra IP addresses. They send you a box that you pay 200 for (with a 100 mail in rebate) and hook the line to that and you can have up to 10 computers online at the same time with no extra monthly fee. I don't know how it affects each personal computers bandwidth though, I haven't taken them up on this offer yet.

As far as speeds, cable was faster, but if you're not a gamer *shrug* won't affect you too much. My DSL does adequately with online games for the most part and downloads do take a little longer. Biggest thing is dling multiple things at once actually seems to interfere on DSL, unlike with cable I could DL like 5 things without any drop in DL speed for any of them.

Hope I was able to help.

(Note! During the middle of typing this my DSL cut out on me and I've had to wait 1 hour 45 minutes so far for it to come back)

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Reynar had this to say about John Romero:
How do you get a 10M/1M cable line when cable caps at 1.54?

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Psst... I think he means mbit, not mbyte.

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Nobody really understood why Ragabash wrote:
snip

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A router would fix most of those problems... with either service.

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Kegwen still thinks SARS jokes are topical, as evidenced by:
WHERE THE FUCK DO YOU LIVE?

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Ten minutes away from Cablevision's main offices.

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Karnaj had this to say about Knight Rider:
Beats me. When the guy ran the diagnostic after he installed it, it brought up a webpage which claimed maximum downstream at 10 megabits and max upstream at 1 megabit. Fastest I've downloaded something is a sustained 700Kb/s, so I'm not complaining.

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Hello Crack.

(1) Web Based Speed Tests are unreliable at best. They're total bullshit at worst. Is there a proxy somewhere between you and the webserver? Is any of the data that it's going to test with locally cached? There are all kinds of things that play into that.

(2) Is it 10Mbit Comitted or is it 10Mbit burst? Ie: Is the 10Mbit ALWAYS yours no matter what or is it 10Mbit at best?

(3) Cable speed depends ENTIRELY on what kind of link goes back to the network provider. I know that the area I'm in is supposadly serviced by a fractional T3. If it wasn't for the gayass caps put in place by the cable company I would be able to leach at abusrd rates while people were asleep.

Of course it seems that everyone in this town has Kazaa and is downloading pr0n all day long. Some of the machines I work on are just really damn freaky.

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Kegwen got all f'ed up on Angel Dust and wrote:
WHERE THE FUCK DO YOU LIVE?

TEN megabits down for $46/month? My GOD! That's an insanely good deal!

edit: standard price here is $45 for 1.5/256... both on cable and DSL. $80 a month for 3M/512 from Comcast.

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He has OOL. OOL is god. You shall worship the OOL.

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Where's Waisz? was naked while typing this:
Psst... I think he means mbit, not mbyte.

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Psst... T-1's are capped at 1.54 'megabits', thus getting a 10 megabit downstream is not possible, unless his cable modem is fed through a T-3 or higher, which they usually aren't, as T-3's are hellishly expensive.

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Gydfather had this to say about Knight Rider:
OK, boys, stop whipping it out and comparing and start helping me with my decision.

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Go with medium speed DSL, expecially if Maradon can get you a deal on it through his company. Since you dont file share or twitch game, anything over 512k up or down wouldn't be of much use to you.

Hope that helps =)

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Verily, Reynar doth proclaim:
Go with medium speed DSL, expecially if Maradon can get you a deal on it through his company. Since you dont file share or twitch game, anything over 512k up or down wouldn't be of much use to you.

Hope that helps =)

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It did, as did Maradon. I got HOOKED UP!@@11

And software to connect? .. Uh.. wtf. 99.9999% of modems out there just ask for a username/pass which you get from the company themselves. You can set it up with XP's add connection wizzy in like, four minutes, max. Less if you have a router. And the extra connections? Why buy a 200 buck (omg, 100 mail in rebate!!) peice of crap when you can go out and get a D-link/Linksys router for 40-50? Or a wireless for 60-80? With cards at 20-40? (I saw one card that was literally free after mailin rebate. )

For the deal ya get with Maradon, I'd say it's pretty good. Sprint/Earthlink DSL is also decent in terms of service.

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Peanut butter ass Shaq Gydfather booooze lime pole over bench lick:
It did, as did Maradon. I got HOOKED UP!@@11

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Did they send you to sales confirmations?

Did they tell you about the $1 hold? Because sometimes I feel like NOBODY BUT ME MENTIONS THE FREAKING $1 CREDIT HOLD

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Reynar enlisted the help of an infinite number of monkeys to write:
Psst... T-1's are capped at 1.54 'megabits', thus getting a 10 megabit downstream is not possible, unless his cable modem is fed through a T-3 or higher, which they usually aren't, as T-3's are hellishly expensive.

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Cable modems are usually fed through OC-24's or OC-48's. There are a bunch of them on one line though. DOCSIS spec allows up to 30 mbps on a cable connection.

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Everyone wondered WTF when Maradon! wrote:
Did they send you to sales confirmations?

Did they tell you about the $1 hold? Because sometimes I feel like NOBODY BUT ME MENTIONS THE FREAKING $1 CREDIT HOLD

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The yinzer mentioned the hold.

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Gydfathering:
The yinzer mentioned the hold.

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What was his name? Maybe I know him!

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Nobody really understood why Tatsukaze wrote:
Cable modems are usually fed through OC-24's or OC-48's. There are a bunch of them on one line though. DOCSIS spec allows up to 30 mbps on a cable connection.

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Yeah, but I believe the FCC forces it to be capped at 10Mbit.

And by "cable modems" do you mean "entire towns" or "each neighborhood"?

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Tatsukaze was listening to Cher while typing:
Cable modems are usually fed through OC-24's or OC-48's. There are a bunch of them on one line though. DOCSIS spec allows up to 30 mbps on a cable connection.

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OC-48s?? Where do you live?

I haven't seen a "residental cable line" with more then a 1.54mbit bandwidth. As the majority of them are fed by T-1's because they are so cheap for the company to keep around.

It's obviously possible if the line they are feeding from is huge, but residental customers simply don't pay enough to warrant anything more then that.

More info on this here:
http://www.matr.net/print-7084.html

On average, though, I would place my throughput at 400Kb/s. So, take it as you will.

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Maradon! had this to say about (_|_):
What was his name? Maybe I know him!

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Can't remember, but this is his second job -- he works at a Valvoline during the days so his fiancee can stay home and take care of his kids.