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ADSL? OR CABLE? Which is better?


bLo0dD

What's better?  

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  1. 1. What's better?

    • Cable
      37
    • ADSL
      15


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I have a debate, I've been on cable, (ROGERS), for awhile now, and I'm thinking of switching to SYMPATICO HIGH SPEED ADSL, is it worth the change?

Considering I use my internet for e-mail, online gaming (mta, cs, nfs:u) also networking, downloading, uploading...

Whats your opinion?

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I dont know if it is the same somewere else . But , I use cable and it works like this , I share a T1 connection with my neighborhood , This is how they make a cable connection . the T1 connection is divited into many houses and each house gets a speed of 100mbps (cable) . So at night many users in my neighborhood uses the internet , so my connection slows down a bit . But in the morning ... Damn i get this lighting fast connection .

And ADSL is not like this . It has a straight connection with the ISP . So it depents on the size on the neighborhood . (At least on my neighborhood is like this )

Hope i could help :lol:

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  • MTA Team

It all depends on your country and your available ISPs. In general cable is faster and more reliable. You share your connection with your neighborhood. So it can slow down sometimes. Depending on how many people ion your neighborhood have cable.

Dgtadude made a mistake. You do not have a straight connection to your ISP with ADSL. YOu have a straight connection to (damn i don't know how to write this in english, the place where all the phone connections from one area come together to get routed further). From there on you have a shared connection to our ISP, so again the speed depends on the number of users. But it also depends on the distance from it. While wih cable distance doesn't matter.

Cable is true 24/7 onine while adsl is still a dialup system. You need to dial in to get a connection and your isp request to dial out when you don't use your connection. ADSL also has connection drops which you have a lot with 56K. Sometimes the connection just gets lost and you need to dial up again.

Best thing i can suggest is to compare download and upload speeds of the providers and then consider the cost of switching and what you pay extra or less every month

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In this case, GO WITH BELL. The services they provide KICK ASS compared to Rogers'.

Check out this press release from Bell... with this implemented (first 1/4 of 2k4) they pretty much klobber the competition...

If you don't want to read the big article below, here's the blood and guts of it:

Rogers: $45/month Not sure about downstream, 3Mbps I believe, but their upstream (upload) was just recently upgraded to 320Kbps (used to be 160 Kbps)

Bell Sympatico:

Normal: 45/month, 3Mbps downstream, 800kps upstream.

Ultra: 60/month, 4Mbps downstream, 800kbps upstream.

Also, keep in mind that although both companies claim no bandwidth restrictions, Rogers WILL cut you off if you are an "abuser". And they define "abuser" as the top 2 percent bandwidth users. This will change each month, but it usually boils down to don't download/upload more than 20 gigs per month.

If you use Bell, you can download/upload 200gigs/month if you wish, and they will never reprimand you for it.

It's DEFINITELY worth it to use Bell, if only for the 800Kbps upstream... that's about 100k/sec max upload speed; MUCH faster than you'll get with Rogers. If you like hosting game servers at all, Bell is your only answer.

http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/arch ... c3122.html

http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/r ... ~mode=flat

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I think on the whole ... Cable has to be better

ADSL = trouble ... in the UK you have to live within a mile of your telephone exchange to get it ! ... constant problems on and off !

Cable ..Well... not all together reliable but definately better that ADSL

Just my experiences .. could be fine for others !

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i HATE cox. before i moved, i had roadrunner, which was 2.5 Mbit/512 kbit. now i got cox and i cant even pull 1 Mbit down and my highest upload is 15 kB/s (bytes), where w/ rr i did 60 kB/s up. BAH!!

Cable is shared throughout the neighborhood but u can be farther away from the central office (or watever u call it) and keep good speeds. w/ adsl, the farther u get from the central office, the less speed ull get (very noticeably compared to cable).

also, cable has a lesser bandwidth limit than adsl, friends in newyork can do 10 friggin Mbits!!! FOR $60-70/mo USD! BASTARDS

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Blokker_1999 wrote:

Cable is true 24/7 onine while adsl is still a dialup system. You need to dial in to get a connection and your isp request to dial out when you don't use your connection. ADSL also has connection drops which you have a lot with 56K. Sometimes the connection just gets lost and you need to dial up again.

Well, I could disagree, actually. Though, ADSL does use the telephone line, it is not really a dial up connection. It is online 24/7, does not take over the telephone, like modem, and, in my view, can not be compared to good old modem system. Also, ADSL always gives 100 % speed of what is promiced by the ISP, becouse it is not shared with anyone else. On the other hand ADSL has quite low range (how long from the telestation one can live) - the more far away you live, the slower the speed (however it will still be 100 % stable, not like with cable). The VDSL has better range, however it is still quite low compared to others. The speed on VDSL is on the other hand is much higher then on ADSL.

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ADSL does 'dial' up. (using ' ' because it doesn't dial in the normal sense of the word, it will appear to do so if you have an internal modem by giving you a dial-up window, My external modem does everything for me so when I turn it on, it's on) Instead of dialing a phone number it opens the line at a particular frequency set by your ISP. It runs over the normal phone line at a higher frequency than normal.

This higher frequency allows you to get more than the usual 56k out of your phoneline. But once you've 'dialed' up and connected then you shouldn't get disconnected as mentioned earier. This would most likely be an idle time put in place by your ISP or something. (but I doubt this, as it wouldn't make sense to having a connection only up sometimes to your machine when you're running a server or something. You'll probably find it's a bad cable somewhere...)

So the 'dialing' up for ADSL is pretty much opening the line to your ISP, as you would make a phone call, and then checking your username and password.

My explanation is pretty crap though, because I can't really be bothered explaining every last detail at the moment... Use google and I'm sure you'll find exactly how it works...

As for the whole cable - DSL debate I found these articles on the web...

http://misnt.indstate.edu/harper/Students/ADSL/ADSL.htm

http://www.cottagesoft.com/adslcable.htm

http://www.earthweb-connect.com/what_is_broadband.htm

:wink:

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I have 1.5Meg/128K Verizon ADSL, and it beats the shiot out of the cable internet here, which supposedly has the same download rate. Their upload is 256k, but the download is totally erratic, and rarely, if ever, reaches full rated speeds.

Also note that many Cable companies, when they say "X times faster than DSL", watch the fine print...it will be some shoddy speed they're quoting (384K in the ads here).

ADSL is usually cheaper (cheaper than a second phone like + Dial-Up ISP, in most cases), and the providers are also pretty honest about the speeds. The best deals will most likely be found from your local telephone company. And there are also alot of promos for new areas of service. First month free, free equipment, that sort of thing.

Edited by Guest
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I have 1.5Meg/128K Verizon ADSL, and it beats the shiot out of the cable internet here, which supposedly has the same download rate. Their upload is 256k, but the download is totally erratic, and rarely, if ever, reaches full rated speeds.

This is likely why most people are saying they like cable better; DSL in most parts of the world is slow compared to what Bell Sympatico offers. How much do you pay for that Verizon ADSL connection Outback? From Sympatico, we get 3Mbps/800K for $45/month (equals $30 american)

Believe me, if you're choosing between Rogers and Sympatico, go with Sympatico.

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  • MTA Team

Allright i will say it once more.

A lot of people don't seem to get the concept of ADSL by stating some wrong facts.

It is true that if you have an internal modem or USB modem with ADSL you still see the dialing window. This means you are not online 24/7 since you need to "dial in". This off course is not a problem. However, most ADSL providers do request to "hang up" the moment you have ended ur business on the net.

Now the biggest error ADSL users like to make is stating that cable users have to share there connection while they don't. This is not true. Both Cable and ADSL users go trough a shared connections. There is however a big difference. With cable the sharing starts from the moment the signal leaver ur house. ADSL has a line of it's own until it comes neer the (what we call in dutch) telephone central (the places where all lines from one area come together to get routed further). From this place onward you are again on a shared line to your ISP.

With ADSL you get mostly a constyant speed, how? because your ISP limits the speed. Same with cable but most cable providers are faster then ADSL providers.

Since ADSL is still "dialup" you still have the same problem that you had with your old 56K or ISDN modem, sometimes it just loses connection and you have to dial in again. The benefit of ADSL is that it is much simpler to install. With ADSL u got a signal splitter in the other end of the line while with cable u need to split the signal in ur house.

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