Re: [TriLUG] Broadband Speeds

[Jeremy Portzer]

The "dedicated bandwidth" of DSL is marketing bull. Sure, you have your own dedicated line back to the CO (Central Office), unlike cable where you are shared with your neighbors immediately. But once you reach the CO, your DSL connection is still shared with your neighbors in whatever upstream connection the company uses from there. There's no such thing as non-shared bandwidth in DSL -- for dedicated bandwidth you have to pay much more, for a leased line or frame relay. As you say at the end of your comments, cable infrastructure is built to widthstand multiple users, and the difference in the "point of sharing" has little difference on the outcome. The result is that cable is a better choice IMO because of the ultimately higher speeds. The 128kb/sec upload rate of some DSL offerings is especially pitiful.

--Jeremy

Chris Bullock wrote:

You have to remember that cable is shared bandwidth, compared to dedicated as with DSL. Potential speeds of cable are significantly higher than that of DSL. I have heard that DSL is more reliable but can't make an honest call about that. Cable is like the days of dial-up when everyone got off work and tried to dial up and got a busy signal. Cable acts the same way, unless the infrastructure is made to withstand a lot of people surfing at the same time. Depending on the cable provider depends on the speed decrease, hopefully the cable provider has planned for this and the consumer should notice little difference if any.
--chris

Stephen Hoffman wrote:

Ok, so with respect to speed for TWC, what are the actual download speeds
for Cable? I am at a consistant 160Kb/sec (advertised at 1.5M), how does
this compare to the other providers? I have heard stories of cable
getting painfully slow around 5ish when everyone is home and surfing, is
that the case here? How about Upload speed? Bellsouth DSL gives me
roughly 35Kb/s upload. I am considering the switch, but want to make sure
I am getting as much bang for my buck as possible.

TIA.
Steve

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