DSL v. cable

Tek7 (Legacy)

Tek7 (Legacy)

CGA & ToJ President
I'm trying to figure out which would be better for my in-laws: cable or DSL. Here are a few factors to consider:

User types: Casual home and home office users (i.e. not expert users, not gamers)
Vendors: AT&T for DSL, Mediacom for cable
Prices: $42/month for cable, $17.99-$27.99/month for DSL

Initial thoughts? I'll post prices for DSL once I do some more research.

EDIT: Added prices for DSL.
 
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with dsl the max speed you can go is 5mb and most dsl ip's charge a lot for only 364 kb/s with cable most isp's you can get a 6mb-8-mb pipe line for $50
 
For my area I would recommend cable because the prices are the same, with cable have the best distrobution system in my area. Also look to see if they can get FIOS :p
 
I have AT&T DSL. I pay $28 a month for a 4mb connection. To get a 3mb cable costs $65 a month ($45 if you get cable). I would also recomend looking into AT&Ts bundles. They could save a lot including getting the unlimitted long distance plan for when you and the misses have little tekkies running around.
 
I found AT&T's prices here.

It seems the AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet Pro Package (1.5 to 3.0 Mbps down, 384 to 512 Kbps up) at $17.99 would be the best balance between price and speed.

My question is: How much does it cost per month after the first year ends? It goes up, right?

Of course, it might all be a moot point. I checked availability by zip code and telephone number, and both reports claimed that DSL was available. I checked my exact street address, and I got We're sorry. AT&T Yahoo! High Speed Internet is not currently available for their address.

Weird.

EDIT: I should mention that, although the service is primarily for them, I will be bringing my laptop on visits to their home and may play games using their Internet connection. It's not a determining factor, but it is something to keep in mind.
 
They JUST canceled their long distance b/c it was a mess after the merge with AT&T. They have no use for long-distance, but it might be worth investigating the packages. Right now, as of maybe a week ago, they only have local phone service.

The only thing that makes me really wonder cable is my dad has to download some massive MLS thing from time to time. I hear it's huge, but I don't really know details. I could try to find out more, but I'm not sure my dad would know how to answer. All he knows is it's impossible on dial-up, and he says even people with high-speed have problems with it. I would have to check on this last part.

We're really not even sure if DSL is going to be available at their house. It's so stupid because it's available literally everywhere around them...even in the boonies. Oh well.

Seems like there was something else, but I don't remember what it was....
 
Download
Loaded 754,928 bytes in 1.453 seconds from TOAST.net (CA) server.

Your Results: 4157 Kb
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With a pipe to http://www.toast.net
Location: Canada
Network(s): Cogent, MCI, Peer 1, TELUS

From Sympatico Ultra-High speed DSL, Toronto, with my ISP just two blocks away :)
$50 a month :)

YAY JESUS! :D

O yea..I had Fiber Optics, and was limited to 3MB's/sec transfers..
I dunno if this is the status quo howeva :p
 
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We had cable with comcast for awhile and every time we turned around there was some type of a problem. Due to franchise guidelines or something we are unable to have bellsouth in our specific neighborhood. We have a smaller company called frontier and ever since we went with them and dsl when we have a problem we call and they handle right then and there. New box or new settings or whatever may be causing problems. We download all of those lovely gaming patches from games we start,stop, and try again with not too of any problems whatsoever. So until I am forced to go back to cable we will stay with the dsl.
Blessings,"Angel"
 
Corpfox has a very good point on that site, but the site is out of date on some of it's information, as they say that in the future both voice and data will be able to run on the same phone line. Well that was already happening in 2000 so I don't know what else might have changed, but they do have some nice pointers.
 
Icthus said:
Casual user = cheapest

They will not noticed the speed difference.
Click to expand...

100% Agreed. Also, what is the service like with the local cable and DSL companies? I know here our DSL company service stinks, and our cable is a little bit better. If the service is poor, it doesn't matter how much per month they are paying if you are there every weekend troubleshooting.
 
I've had both Cable and DSL. Cable is a ripoff, and like Corpfox said, DSL is more private. DSL seems to be consistently $20 less than cable within my state.

Speed-wise, don't worry about DSL. It's PLENTY fast. You may need to wait a bit longer for really large downloads, but general web surfing and even playing games, you won't notice a difference between DSL and cable.

If I had a choice, I'd get DSL. We do not currently have a choice where we live, so I'm paying a lot to have cable.
 
I've got cable from Comcast. Most of the time it works very well with no problems. I can usually play some online gaming with my wifi.

However, when we first got it it'd be out of service for a couple of days (maybe even a week) at a time more often than not.

I'm not sure if that's typical... but if it's just for a couple of old farts I'd stick with what's most reliable :p
 
There is something about computer illiterate people and uninstalling drivers when the internet doesnt work... then they wonder why it doesnt work anymore after 3 weeks...
 
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