Broadband: Cable or DSL?

[Klonoa]

get cable if you can. Much faster than dsl.

Right now I am currently on the 30 day trial of Verizon DSL.

Its so sweet. I intended to just use it for about 20 days and return it but I'm having 2nd thoughts.

Fuck aol, all I need is AIM anyways

[Rumpy]

Eeesh! AOL? Dumped that shit when it was at 3.0 and have never looked back (though I use AIM because everyone I know uses it).

Never used DSL. I've had cable for a month and a half now (Optimum Online) and it rocks. On good servers I usually get over 200 k/sec downloads. I can usually start watching a movie trailer before it's half way done and not have to wait for it to load (loads faster than I can watch it). It hasn't gone out on me yet, though I have this weird problem where I can't run it through the splitter (so I can wach TV at the same time) before 8 pm, or else it won't work. Something like if the line is split too many times the signal is too weak or some shit. I don't mind too much, there is little on during the summer, and if I do want to watch something I can buzz downstairs or switch the wires in a minute.

Cost is $45 a month, and the modem was $125 (though they had a deal form The Wiz where the modem was free). Totally worth the 45 a month though. And online gaming is even better as well.

[Ragnarok the Red]

Well, Z-Roe, I reccommend you go here: http://www.broadbandreports.com and do some comparison shopping.

I've been on cable for almost 2 years now, first with @Home, and then switched over to AT&T after they went under, and let me tell you, its the tale of two very fucking different cities.

With @Home, it was beyond spectacular...outside of having a T1 or T3 line going directly into my house, I doubt it could possibly have been any better. I was getting downstream of 1600-2400 kbps all the time. I pinged usually 10-70 on game servers, and life was grand. All that for only $30 a month if I owned my own cable modem, which I eventually did.

Then @Home went under and I went to the hastily-assembled AT&T Broadband Internet, and since then, I can only say the service has gotten progressively worse. I now downstream about 350-1450 kbps depending on the time of day. My ping to game servers ranged from 90 (and thats on a really, REALLY good day) to over 300. Yes, three-fucking-hundred, worse ping than I was getting on my 56K modem using Netzero back in the day. Oh, and have I mentioned AT&T recently announced a SECOND price hike up to $44? To say I am ready and willing to jump ship is a massive understatment.

Unfortunately where I live, AT&T is my only choice for cable, they have a monopoly right now. I'm hoping that eventually Earthlink will make their way into my zip code and I will oh-so-very promptly be switching providers.

So if anyone can reccommend any good DSL providers in the North Texas area, by all means, tell me

An thats all I got ta say 'bout that...

[Ashen Victor]

i use cable and love it, but i've never really used dsl (one time experience that was far from pleasant) so that'd be a lopsided opinion. like ethugg, i'm using roadrunner and i don't really have any complaints. the most my connection has been down for was like 15 minutes, but only to come back feeling faster than normal.

one of my friends has owned both at one point or another. he prefers cable way more than dsl. said something about how his dsl connection kept crapping out on him and was very unstable. i don't remember what he was using, but he was extremely unsatisfied with the service and went back to cable asap.

[station82o]

argh...just got broadband today on my XP system and was trying to via router hook it up to my Win95 system but no dice...its an agravating thing over here. I'm most likley going to upgrade the Win 95 system to Win 2000 - that should help. Basically the Win 95 system isn't recognizing (or acknowledging) the network it is on (network of those two computers). Anyone got any general tips or has this happened to anyone else?

BTW thanks Tracer!@!@!!

[EightBit]

You all rock! Thanks much for the info/opinions.

So far it looks like I'm going with cable. DSL in this area is just too expensive(80$ a month!), and all my friends have had good experiences with Road Runner and Earthlink in this area. I will probably end up with DSL when I get to Orlando though, because I beleive there is a good/cheap local company there. Im still calling around though, hopefully I will have some kind of service up and running next week. Oh, and I know AOL sucks such incredible ass, that there is not an ass large enough in this world for it to suck, but I wasn't paying for it(Mom), and though it was slow, I didn't have many problems.

I'll just be glad that I can download videos of games soon without having to start DLing when I goto bed so that it'll be ready when i wake up... bleh.

Z-roe

[Korly]

I like DSL.

[Klonoa]

Originally posted by Z-roe
You all rock! Thanks much for the info/opinions.

So far it looks like I'm going with cable. DSL in this area is just too expensive(80$ a month!),

80 a month!??! where the fuck do you live?

[EightBit]

Safety Harbor, Florida. I think the DSL I was asking about was a buisness use one or something. i still have more calling around to do and see whats out there.

Z-roe

[gameoverDude]

Cable is the way to go- I use Road Runner. It is faster than DSL, but just hope your neighbor's beagle doesn't chomp the cable (as happened to me recently). Other than the beagle incident I have had few outages.

While RR has got a good transfer rate, don't expect 10 Megabaud.

I dumped AOL back in 1998. There were too many problems with it- sluggish response, and the "You've got...goodbye!" thing. When you don't get kicked off you frequently find your mailbox filled to the hilt with spam. Sure there's AOL Broadband now- but I'm sticking with Road Runner.