posted on December 3, 2000 03:58:59 PM new
I know this has been discussed before, but both of these are getting cheaper and more widespread. Verizon is offering me DSL for $40/month, free setup including modem. Comcast is offering me cable for $40/month, free setup (it is actually $37 + $3 modem rental). Both are same cost, which is what I am paying know for my ISP ($20) and 2nd phone line ($20). I want to upgrade, but which one? Any thoughts?
With ADSL, I am getting results better than the shared T-3 I used to use at work! My understanding is that cable can get sluggish during peak periods, and this will only get worse as more people in your area subscribe.
posted on December 3, 2000 04:22:40 PM new
Hi Don. I'm in PA also but in the Alltel serviced areas. While I have DSL I'd have concerns about Verizon. Apparently you're in the old Bell Atlantic area. Over on www.dslreports.com Verizon is listed under the "Horror Story" category related to their DSL eastern US operations. I'd check with several people around you who have their DSL and get their honest opinions of the setup and service qualities. The reports that people have been giving Verizon on that website have been horrifying (such as one person who has been given the runaround for 3 months and they still don't have it right).
All I can say from my personal experience with Verizon is that they swallowed up my cell phone provider (GTE). I haven't had a month that something hasn't gone wrong in service or billing since the takeover. The customer service is pathetic and service unreliable. Since we're in the same state and I'm guessing we're probably less than 100 miles apart, I'd be very cautious about them. Get opinions from those who have the service.
posted on December 3, 2000 04:33:58 PM new
Two great links, thanks. I had heard some bad things about comcast@home, and since verizon is now running a "special", I thought I would see how they were doing, but according to the link provided by avaloncourt, there are alot more horror stories than promising ones. Maybe I should just stick with my 56k for now.
posted on December 3, 2000 05:18:38 PM new
Gee Guys you are really bursting my bubble here! I live in the Maryland area which is either Comcast for cable and Verizon for DSL and have playing with the idea of treating myself to one of them! Wanted to see which service was best glad to here dsl on one of the first posts but then the horror story on Verizon then you go and mention not so hot comcast. Do you have to use only these two companies if you live in their area???? Are there others? I live near Annapolis.
posted on December 3, 2000 05:29:02 PM new
I live in NYC and when I signed up for Verizon's DSL service last June, many people told me I had made the biggest mistake ever.
I found some "horror story" web pages and started to worry. The activation date came and I hooked it up without a hitch.
It was $49.95 the first month I had it and in August or September, the price was lowered to $39.95 a month.
The first week I was online, there were 2 days where I had sporadic downtime. Since then there has only been one day where the service was down for several hours in the afternoon. I have to say that I'm impressed with the service and have zero problems.
I received a technical heads up e-mail from them last week telling me to download a new driver for the modem they provided because in January there is some kind of changeover coming. They apologized for the necessity of having to download the driver and as a think you are sending a $25. American Express gift check.
posted on December 3, 2000 05:34:40 PM new
I'm using Charter Cable and I've been very pleased. I've had it for 8 months. My cost is a bit higher - $39/month plus $10/month modem rental. They had one week long e-mail outage (which was very annoying) but they gave me a refund for that month. Other than that, it's been great.
I think so much depends on the specific company. I understand that (in a perfect world) cable is faster than DSL but (in reality) it depends on how many people are actually using the cable. My web access has been wonderful and 100% stable.
posted on December 3, 2000 06:05:06 PM new
Really check with other subscribers of DSL around you. DSL is usually poorly serviced, but if you live near a good servicer, DSL would be the top choice.
Cable is a little bit more consistant, especially with cable TV providers using @Home. @Home has horrible e-mail servers and you should not depend on their e-mail at all. Speeds are getting slower to as more people are subscribing.
If you can get cable from a non-@Home cable provider, TAKE IT. It may be a tad more expensive, but you will never regret it in the long run.
posted on December 3, 2000 07:05:47 PM new
Bluee is right about checking the services specific to your area. DSL service varies greatly, as does cable.
I use Time Warner's RoadRunner. I am one of the original 600 beta subscribers and have used it for 4 years. Absolutley no complaints. However, some TW users in other parts of the country have real problems.
Check with users of DSL and Cable in your specific area before you decide.
[ edited by reamond on Dec 4, 2000 11:47 AM ]
posted on December 3, 2000 07:16:13 PM new
I've been a Comcast@Home subscriber since early 1998, and I'm just waiting until DSL is available for me here. I'd recommend DSL, based upon my experience with my cable modem. (Especially if you're in the Baltimore, MD area)
Just the tip of my iceberg: frequent mailserver outages, frequent nameserver outages, incompetent tech support. That's just the past year. I've had no problem with the guys who actually come out here, its the 888 tech support that is clueless.
A friend of mine recently made the switch from @home to DSL (via Telocity) and he's happy. Very happy. His problem was getting @Home to cancel his account. Apparently their system was down when he called the first time...
I could give a few more examples of Comcast@Home stupidity if you like.
posted on December 3, 2000 07:36:33 PM new
I am in the south and I have a great variety to choose from as far as DSL (I would not even consider cable).
I got a brand new computer with 733mhz, 64 megs of ram, 10 gig HD, 15" monitor, DSL and 56K modems, and JBL speakers with DSL service for $60 a month from Southwestern Bell for 28 months. After that its only $40 a month. Oh yeah, I also got a free dial up so I can access the net anywhere !!
You just can't beat that deal with a stick !
I forgot to mention Earthlink just started offering DSL service too.
[ edited by cix on Dec 3, 2000 07:37 PM ]
posted on December 4, 2000 11:05:10 AM new
I'm using Mindspring in a Verizon area. Mindspring actually pays Verizon to provide it.
I'm quite happy at $49 a month here's why. Verizon only guarantees 640K for their $39 per month rate. Mindspring guarantees that, but does not limit your speed. I average about 1.2MEG (Twice the speed of Verizon) for just $10 more a month.
Father in law has cable. It too is fast. Not quite as fast as my DSL and it's a bit less secure.
posted on December 4, 2000 11:25:25 AM new
One thing to keep in mind is that many companies have excellent service in some areas and poor service in others, so it's important to find out info on the service in your particular area. The best way to do this is through the site mentioned above, dslreports.com.
I didn't discover dslreports.com until after my line was installed, and I was horrified to learn that not only was my provider probably the worst possible choice, they had actually terminated a user's account because he had posted a bad review. Working on switching services at the moment.
posted on December 4, 2000 12:01:21 PM new
We use Time Warners Road Runner cable. DSL is not available where we live, we are too far from the company. I think our setup was free with 2 months service free, we pay $39.95 per month.
We are fairly satisfied with RR, there have been some problems lately as they have added new routers etc. We always request credit when there are interruptions. Our speed is normally pretty fast, downloads on average of 200kbps. At night the speed can slow down, but we normally will still run way above what a modem would be. During the day I don't notice slowdowns as much.
Email is pretty dependable, but we do use Hotmail and Yahoo mail as a backup.
No matter which you choose, you'll need firewall software. We use a 4 port router to share our connection on our 3 system home network. The router gives us a hardware firewall so we are completely hidden and secure online.
posted on December 4, 2000 12:29:43 PM new
DO NOT get satellite. Ping times are horrible, uploads go through your 56k modem, and downloads are not that fast.
No wonder AOL is going to start that 0_o
By the way, my cable is really fast. It will goes as fast as the server I am accessing will allow. I can download at 500-1000 KILOBYTES, NOT kilobits. Just remember all advertised speeds are in bits, not bytes. There are 8 bits in a byte. There are 1024 bytes in a kiloyte. There are 1024 kilobytes in a megabyte.
DSL for 640kbps (kilobits per second) can range from 40-60 dollars a month. You will almost NEVER go faster then the advertised speeds. The max you could ever get would be a good sum under 100K a second.
My cable is consistantly over 100K/S. If it isn't, the server I am accessing is horribly bogged down and I just switch servers. The only problem with cable would be the 16k/s upload speeds (usually round 13k/s). DSL can upload up to their advertised speed.
posted on December 4, 2000 01:30:41 PM new
Another thing to consider are the install times to get DSL vs. Cable.
With DSL you can expect 30-45 days before you're actually installed - BEST CASE SCENARIO. There are tons of things that can impede your installation (loaded coils, wrong pairs, bridge taps to name a few). You will likely have a very hard time getting any answers or ETA on when these issues are 2 be resolved if you do run into these roadblocks during the install process for DSL. Its very messy.
With Cable, you can expect to be installed w/in a matter of days.
I have @home.com thru Cox Cable and LOVE the service.
I ordered as SOON as "cable" came available in my neighborhood and was installed 3 days later. The tech came out and put a new outlet in and installed a nic card and he was finished in under 45 minutes. I have had NO PROBLEMS.
posted on December 6, 2000 01:15:58 PM new
We are with Bell South's Fast Access DSL, for $40 per month. Work's great, never had any downtime yet. DSL modem with disk and instructions arrived 3 days after ordering! We installed ourselves. No problem. We use Zone Alarm's fire wall since we are now online 24/7. I cancelled my second phone line which had cost me $55 per month and working ebay with AW online is now a breeze!
posted on December 6, 2000 01:42:58 PM new
avaloncourt - I think Bluee is correct, and there are 1024 kilobytes in a megabyte. And 1024 megabytes would be a gigabyte... right?
Mega, giga, tera...
Does anyone here use either cable or DSL or a home network? I have two computers at home which are not currently networked together, but when I get DSL or cable they'll both need to use it. One is upstairs and one downstairs.
posted on December 6, 2000 01:51:50 PM new
RainyBear, we have a 3 computer home network. We had the network up and running before we tried to share the internet connection. We used Sygate Internet Sharing Software to begin with, then bought a Linksys 4 port Cable/DSL router.
The cable internet connection goes first to the router and then the router assigns IP addresses to each of the computers. They run independantly of each other and can all be online. Using Sygate, the Main system had to be up, running, and connected to the net in order for the others to surf.
The router was about $140 from buy.com
My advice, network them first and get that working well. Then do the internet sharing thing. The router also gives you a secure firewall. We are competely hidden on the web.
Edited to add, using the Sygate system, you have to have two NIC's in the main system instead of just one. (nic=network card)
[ edited by Meya on Dec 6, 2000 01:54 PM ]
posted on December 6, 2000 02:14:31 PM new
Meya - thanks for the networking info! Maybe I'll sit down and figure it all out after the busy holiday season is over.
- A kilobyte is equal to 1,024 bytes or characters.
- A megabyte is equal to 1,024 kilobytes.
- A gigabyte is equal to 1,024 megabytes.
So Bluee is claiming a data transfer rate of between roughly 5 and 10 megabytes, not gigabytes -- which is still almost unbelievably fast, but not instantaneous.
posted on December 6, 2000 02:18:52 PM new
I can just say I am had the same dispute but after trying both out at a freinds I can tell you I prefer DSL. for one main reson and lots of small ones. That DSL you get your own server space but with cable you have to share the space with the rest of your neighborhood or what ever area you are assigned to so I say DSL DSL!
Sorry
And im not a DSL salesman I promise!
posted on December 6, 2000 02:50:16 PM new
for some reason I read the original post as Mega bits. not sure why. But, as you said, it's still unbelievably fast. A claim of 1MByte per second (got it right that time) would still be 8 Megabit per second. hmmm. Especially since cable is shared acess on a WAN.
posted on December 6, 2000 05:43:03 PM new
I wanted to cry when my mother got her connection through her cable company. Where I live there is no cable lines yet. Her speed is incredible. Everything is instant. I don't know anything about the transfer rate but when it took no time at all to download IE 5.5, it got my attention. We tried the bandwidth speed test and her connection speed was off the chart. I don't know what T2 means but she blew past that. I'm lucky if I can get past 27 Kbps.
posted on December 6, 2000 10:38:43 PM new
Don't go for cable! I've had cable through ispchannel since July and have regretted every minute. I've had more outages than I can count, extreme packet loss, they capped the speed at 500 kbps and I've had speeds slower than my 56K modem. I call their customer service and no one seems to know what is going on or is able to help. They don't seem to have tier 2 customer support as the supervisor I spoke to once never called me back. I can actually sit and watch mp3 downloads (napster) slow to zero and do a transfer error. I'll be going to ADSL in January, as I want to do more research first which I should have done before signing on to cable.
----------------------------------- Yoda of Borg are we: Futile is resistance. Assimilate you, we will.
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