DSL or Cable?

[Don Taylor]

if you are on dial-up you shouldnt be playing. i recommend you quit until you fix your problem laggot

[Mr. Peanuts]

I recommend you quit with the unnecessary comments, he's not asking for your opinion on dial-up users, he's just asking which service is better.

[Gemfire]

I have DSL, I'm always at bout 140 ping(DSL is bad here, but my mom wont buy cable -.- ) but the thing is, i NEVER spike, I only become a hardcore laggot when my mom is downloading something on her computer...since her computers connection gets priority over mine -_-

[Claim]

I have cable and do get really high plosses at time the allow me to not be able to play for anywhere from 30 minutes to 10 hours... It can really get annoying

[Bosshawk]

i worked in the ISP industry up until about 2 months ago:

cable is relative to the number on your same router, but, unless you live in a high rise with 1000 units and theres 10 of the same type of buildings in the next few blocks around u, it will never affect your connection.....

on top of that nothing is faster then cable connections without going to a t1 or t3 lines these days

Cable is always my recommendation


DSL is dependent on how far u are from the Phone Service Box for your Area...... the farther u are from the head office in your area basically, the more your connection degrades

so if you are right in a city, and within 20 or 25 miles/kms from it you probably arent going to see any significant loss, but if your in a rural area, odds are you connection will be spotty.....

every gamer that i know that has used DSL has changed to cable, at least in this area.......

my cable i get about 4500 kbps download and 600 upload in this area:
heres my dsl reports test:


2004-05-13 16:31:44 EST: 4370 / 588
Your download speed : 4475682 bps, or 4370 kbps.
A 546.3 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 602409 bps, or 588 kbps.

[wadi]

There's really no right or wrong answer to this question, and I'm currently hookng up a connection too drow. There are some things to consider though:

1.) With DSL, how far are you from the Central Office? You need to ask the salesperson this, and if they won't tell you, don't buy service from them. you _can_ be a maximum of 16,000 feet from the CO, but for good service you don't really want to be more than 10-11,000 feet from the CO.
2.) With DSL, how old is the wiring in your house/neighbourhood? This isn't that big a factor these days with better routers, but it can still effect your performance. If you live in an area that you know has very very old wiring, you may consider Cable.
3.) With cable, what's the maximum number of people that can share your connection? Cable is basically a high speed hookup to a big piece of fiber, like a T3 or better. Comcast in seattle has a maximum of 200 shares on a node, which is pretty good unless you plan on drawing some _serious_ bandwidth during peak hours. Some providers have higher limits, some have lower, but find out what yours is before you get cable.
4.) U/D speed! The real numbers! With ADSL if you're uploading at 90% of your upload, even if your download is 5 times your upload max speed, you can only draw 10% of your download speed. For instance, if your U/D is 1.5meg/sec and your up is 200K/sec, and you're uploaded at 190k, the best you can hope to garner on download is 75k (5% of your max). SDSL does not have this problem, and cable shouldn't, unless they cap you, then it may.
5.) Static IP vs Dynamic. Most routers these days will let you spoof your IP so you can run multiple computers on one ADSL connection. However, some providers will get mad if they find out this is what you're doing, and may ask you to buy more IPs from them. Find out if you're getting a static IP, or dynamic, how many, whether NATing is allowed, and how much more IPs will cost.

That's about it. For me, I'm going to go with cable. I'm 13000 feet away from the nearest CO for DSL, even though they've got better packages, and the wiring in my house is real old. The cable company is also new, so I don't expect a ton of people on our node.

[Due]

13000 feet = ......km?

[death row]

well guys, I'm getting DSL on the 24th. So we'll see how that goes.

[PaulOakenfold]

I can tell you one thing... though Cable connections will continously get faster as the technology gets better.... DSL is probably the connection of the future just because of the large amount of telephone cable available all over the place... allowing for less lag even in large areas.

I'd say for the next couple years there's no real big difference, and we'll see what cable modems do, but it really just comes down to what companies you have around you. Don't just look at max speed, because usually that's bull shit... like Wadi said, look at the user limitations and such. You may have to play a little hit or miss until you find the right connection for your area however.

[Pan]

DSL for me rocks since i have a crapload of Verizon Towers/Buildings all over the place around me, but if you were in Western Pennsylvania you'd prolly be better off with a 56k then DSL out there Eastern Pa DSL > Cable. So iunno where every you live drow is the best for me and plus DSL is cheap here compared to cable.

[Fit of Rage]

I have cable, and the one thing I can say about it is that it's consistant. I actually had not had any lag problems for the past... six months? Or so, until yesterday I got an unexpected ping spike. But for all other purposes it works fine. I heard that DSL can sometimes be suddenly disconnected if the connection is interrupted by interference, whether it be other waves or even an airplane. I don't know the truth to that though.

[Pan]

I heard that DSL can sometimes be suddenly disconnected if the connection is interrupted by interference, whether it be other waves or even an airplane. I don't know the truth to that though.

lol would suck to live near a airport then wouldnt

[DOTSY]

i live in holland where dsl is really cheap, i have 1mb/m down and 17kb/s up soemthinng like that.. and i pay €13 euros/month without datalimiting

$$

[Zerzera]

Bah, and I pay €30,75 for 512 cable with 3.75Gb limit

[Bilange]

DSL:

I was told you have to be 1.5 kilometers away (at most) from the phone company building. Note that its 1.5 KM cable wise, not roads.

I saw an exception for this, that person is way outside this 1.5km limit, but can get ADSL. The bad news is that she gets packet loss in peak times, and cannot upgrade to a faster DSL deal. (She's using a standard ADSL package, 1mbit down)

And for that comment about "dont let ISPs figure out you're sharing your connection", bullshit - im aware of no ISPs disallowing sharing. In my areas, they almost promote it.