Cable Beats DSL For Average Speed

zymano writes "CNET article here says cable modems are 50 percent faster on average than DSL connections which I think most have suspected . There are some connection rates that i found interesting like Cablevision reportedly having the fastest connections, averaging 800kbps, or 13kbps above the industry average. Mentions other cable company speeds. TimeWarner cable was not tested."

Comments

Sounds right...

[Martin Blank]

Most people I know on DSL are capped at 1.5Mbps, while I routinely can download on my cablemodem at home at 350KB/sec. They're also usually capped at 128kbps upload, while mine (Adelphia Powerlink in Southern California) has been raised to 256kbps. The download speed difference has been around for as long as I've had a cablemodem under Adelphia (and Comcast before that) -- about five years.

Re:Sounds right...

[hbackert]

Here in Tokyo, the place where you want to be when you want Internet connections for cheap, the standard DSL service is 12Mbit/s down, 1Mbit/s up. For abour Yen 3000 (about US$ 26). And so far no restrictions. And it's fast (within Japan 900kbyte/s if the server is fast enough, to USA usually 200kbyte/s).

Everything else in Japan and especially in Tokyo is expensive. But Internet is as cheap as you can imagine.

Re:Sounds right...

[bwalling]

Here in Tokyo, the place where you want to be when you want Internet connections for cheap, the standard DSL service is 12Mbit/s down, 1Mbit/s up. For abour Yen 3000 (about US$ 26). And so far no restrictions. And it's fast (within Japan 900kbyte/s if the server is fast enough, to USA usually 200kbyte/s).

Is there something wrong with me if that gives me wood?

Re:Sounds right...

[otis wildflower]

Is there something wrong with me if that gives me wood?

900KB/s hentai porn streams?

Domo arigato, baby..

Re:Sounds right...

[ivan256]

Most people I know on DSL are capped at 1.5Mbps, while I routinely can download on my cablemodem at home at 350KB/sec. They're also usually capped at 128kbps upload, while mine (Adelphia Powerlink in Southern California) has been raised to 256kbps.

Funny, my uploads are "capped" at 1.5Mbps. I also have 8 static IPs. Try getting that from a cable company.

The difference between cable internet and DSL from what I've seen is that you have one choice of cable provider, and hundreds of choices of DSL providers. That means you get to pick your terms of service with DSL, and you get the terms of service dictated to you with cable. For me that means DSL wins.

Re:Sounds right...

[b1t r0t]

And that's mostly because of line quality reasons. In SBC territory, if you're lucky enough to be in an area upgraded with a Remote Terminal (or to live really close to a CO), you have the option of paying a rather steep (but still cheaper than T1) price for 6Mbit/384Kbit DSL. The tricky part is that it's much easier to find out where the COs are than to figure out where the RT neighborhoods are.

Of course they put a halt to their upgrading project (Project Pronto) when the economy crashed in late 2000. Now they just upgrade on an as-needed basis.

Re:Sounds right...

[dead sun]

I'm on DSL and I am capped at 1.5Mbps downstream, but I'm capped at 385kbps up, which I routinely get.

If it was raw speed I was strictly concerned about I might switch over to cable. I rarely download huge files, just the occasional CD image that I can wait for overnight. I usually get good speeds when grabbing those, as they tend to come from servers geographically close, and average around 200KB/sec. certainly not your speed, but not bad either. Latency and uptime are also outstanding on my DSL service.

The primary reason that I haven't switched over is that the contract that I agreed to when I got my DSL is that I can run as many machines as I want on the one connection and they can even be servers. They'll provide no support for such, but really, I don't need networking help. They even accepted mail for the short time that I had a mail server up and running. Compared to local cable companies where the best I can get is the unofficial we probably won't shut you down for doing that, I'm much happier on DSL.

Not Always True

[fine09]

I think we can agree that in some cases DSL is faster than cable. I live in a two university town where there are a lot of students in my area. That means there are a lot of heavy bandwidth users in my area.

Since cable in our area has a shared backbone for neighbourhood segments, that means that cable in my area is a lot slower than DSL. With Kazaa running all the time on almost all of the machines, I end up getting a faster connection for a lower price.

Re:Not Always True

[Cyberdyne]

Since cable in our area has a shared backbone for neighbourhood segments, that means that cable in my area is a lot slower than DSL. With Kazaa running all the time on almost all of the machines, I end up getting a faster connection for a lower price.

Yes, cable's more vulnerable to that - although with DSL, you're still sharing the backhaul pipe from the DSLAM to the ISP, and of course all the ISP's customers are sharing the ISP's pipe(s) to the rest of the Net. The tradeoff is that cable has much more bandwidth to share.

In theory, with some clever traffic shaping, you could give "interactive" users the full bandwidth of the pipe (in short burts) - so when you view a webpage, it arrives at many megabits/sec. Then after, say, the first megabyte (a fraction of a second at full bandwidth for a cable segment), start throttling back to the "bulk download" rate. That could give insanely fast interactive performance (even really bloated webpages would appear in a flash, if the remote server can manage it) without taking the financial hit of Kazaa users eating a couple of Mbps 24x7.

P2P is, as you say, a huge problem on cable segments (and on DSL: it's still shared once you reach the exchange); one user running Kazaa can easily eat the bandwidth of a few dozen "normal" users. Either the ISP has to buy a load more bandwidth to cope (and a massive price hike to cover it), or do something to stop them: traffic shaping, ban it (and enforce that ban), or impose traffic quotas.

Re:Not Always True

[Apreche]

The real problem is that Kazaa is the p2p sharing program of choice. It uses so much bandwith for its spy/adware stuff that you don't even realize. If you could get kazaa users to use some other p2p program that isn't spyware, then it would be much much faster.

I've seen cable and I've seen DSL. Depending on who and where one is usually faster than the other. But either one is usually fast enough. They are both fast enough to stream video. And the difference isn't enough to save a significant amount of time when you are downloading a few linux isos. It doesn't really matter if you choose cable or DSL. You wont get the next significant level of speed unless you are at a college campus or have a lot of money.

Re:Not Always True

[RickHunter]

Though the problems from Kazaa etc. are often because most modern P2P applications are very wasteful of bandwidth. IIRC, Kazaa does a bunch of "tricks" to try to detect and circumvent attempts to throttle its bandwidth, restrict outgoing connections, etc. The end result is a lot of garbage traffic that is not, strictly speaking, necessary for the protocol.

I believe (though haven't checked personally) that newer open-source P2P software like BitTorrent is more responsible about this.

Also, note that you're drastically overstating the cost of bandwidth to the ISP. Bandwidth is naturally cheap, the only time its really expensive is when a telco monopoly controls it. (As cheap bandwidth is against their percieved best interest) The real problem is often upstream bandwidth - many broadband ISPs seem to have assumed that usage patterns would be unchanged from dialup. The idea that an always-on, high-speed connection might lead to people uploading/hosting more never seems to have occurred to them. (Nor that this is desirable, as it creates value for their other customers at no real cost to them)

Re:Not Always True

[PenguiN42]

If you could get kazaa users to use some other p2p program that isn't spyware,

You mean kazaa lite?

Re:Not Always True

[leviramsey]

The problem with KaZaa, Gnutella and the various decentralized (apart from any authentication) P2P services is that they were designed by people who have no business nor knowledge when it comes to actually designing a network protocol.

Bittorrent, being much more centralized (and hence less ideal for warezing...) is a much better design, from a raping the net perspective.

I expect that it will be the bandwidth and QoS issues of those services that drives ISPs to put in more draconian bandwidth caps (as many universities are already doing), not action by the *AA.

Re:Not Always True

[b1t r0t]

Yes, cable's more vulnerable to that - although with DSL, you're still sharing the backhaul pipe from the DSLAM to the ISP, and of course all the ISP's customers are sharing the ISP's pipe(s) to the rest of the Net. The tradeoff is that cable has much more bandwidth to share.

I think you've got it backwards. With cable, the bandwidth that is shared is in the neighborhood segment. That's the expensive stuff to upgrade, because it requires truck rolls and trenching, and it only has limited bandwidth because there are dozens of TV channels crammed in that same bandwidth.

With DSL, the bandwidth that gets shared is between COs and to the ISP, which is all fiber these days, and easily upgraded. It may be as simple as telling a computer somewhere to allocate more ATM bandwidth along a line, or a little more complicated by switching out a couple of fiber NIC modules to higher speed versions.

The only time that DSL is even equivalent is at the Remote Terminal level, and those are usually fed by at least 155Mbit ATM lines. And it's a plain data fiber, with no TV channels, so it's still easily upgradable by switching out NIC modules.

Falling off a a cliff is faster than climbing down

[PsychoSlashDot]

That's nice.

Nonetheless, I think I'll just keep my 1.3Mbps down/800kbps up DSL link which DOESN'T require me to send things like say... POP3 authentication, or say... all the traffic coming in to my SMTP server in clear, sniffable text. The guy next door can have his cable, thank you very much.

Regardless of how "fast" cable is, it's not a viable option for anything more than casual use.

Latency

[beders]

No details on how laggy the connections are, the difference in speed is less likely to be noticed than say the difference between a ping of 10ms and 100ms in a FPS

Re:Latency

[Motherfucking Shit]

You bring up a good point in latency. I think latency and throughput are - at least in the current state of residential broadband in the US - mutually exclusive; the DSL providers tend to give you awesome pings but low caps, the cable companies give you less conservative caps but the pings aren't as hot. You choose your connection for one or the other. I chose throughput.

From RoadRunner (Time Warner) Midsouth, to one of the Ultima Online game servers I play:

$ ping -c5 greatlakes.owo.com
PING central-ae6.owo.com (159.153.226.29): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 159.153.226.29: icmp_seq=0 ttl=52 time=39.161 ms
64 bytes from 159.153.226.29: icmp_seq=1 ttl=52 time=36.583 ms
64 bytes from 159.153.226.29: icmp_seq=2 ttl=52 time=35.448 ms
64 bytes from 159.153.226.29: icmp_seq=3 ttl=52 time=38.382 ms
64 bytes from 159.153.226.29: icmp_seq=4 ttl=52 time=40.056 ms

--- central-ae6.owo.com ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 35.448/37.926/40.056/1.686 ms

Having read the UO message boards for a long time, it seems like DSL users tend to get slightly better pings (averaging 15-20ms, I've seen some on speakeasy who claim pings of 5ms). However, I'm perfectly able to compete with my latency. I'd rather have a 40ms ping average to game, and also be able to download at 250KB/sec.

It really depends on what you use your connection for the most, and how you prioritize those uses. Someone who is generally a casual uploader/downloader but does a ton of gaming might be better off with DSL, for the apparent latency boost. Someone like me, who enjoys gaming but spends a lot of time uploading and downloading as a coder/sysadmin is better off with cable and its apparent throughput boost.

For me, it boils down to the work side of things. I have (among others) one mysqldump that's over 900 megs, which I download 3 times a week to maintain as an offsite backup[1]. There are a number of other dumps I download for backup purposes as well, probably totalling 500+ megs in their own right. When it comes to downloading 900 megs - or especially a gig and a half - there's a noticeable difference between a 150KB/s download cap and a 250KB/s download cap. I can give up a few lag-deaths in Ultima Online now and then as a tradeoff to getting my "important" file transfers faster.

At the risk of sounding like a Time Warner apologist (I have a rather botched history with AOL, so believe me I'm no fan) I have to say that cable has always been more appealing to me than DSL. Then again, I've always been more concerned with how fast I can download ;)

Just my two cents.

[1] Yeah, I'm probably one of those hated "power users" from the cableco's standpoint. `ipfw show` claims ~32 gigs in 24 days uptime, but until I hear any complaints, I figure I'll use the broadband I pay for.

But most cable companies provide 50% less service

[adzoox]

My cable company (Charter) = the legal oligopoly - has horrible customer service.

I often have problems with my cable modem. DSL isn't an option for several reasons:

A) I haven't had a phone line or paid for a land line in 5 years

B)Speed is truely a little slower

C)DSL is MUCH more expensive (at least for providers in my area)

D)It would be a large transfer investement to go to a different type of service - I have been able to do a lot of eBay selling and transfer of hardware as Charter has transition from @home (which was superior) to PipeLine.

The other gripe about cable not comparing to DSL is the misleading requirements. I had posted this in my journal before:

Charter Pipeline requirements

1)Workers / installers also make people think that is MEGABYTE AND KILOBYTE it is megabit and kilobit - they advertise the service with a k when it should be with a kbps or kb - but front desk people will often say "You should upgrade to the 1 megabyte service"

The way I have tested this is by hooking my Aiport BaseStation up to both - I used his (neighbor's) service, he used my service for a week. We both use Peer to Peer and both download a considerable amount of images and software updates. We also both upload to eBay a lot. There is a considerable sized class action action lawsuit in Greenville against Charter, this is one of the many things mentioned as a grievance in the suit.

2)They advertise on the Pipeline website that a Mac with a 601 PPC or higher is able to have the service. They install free ethernet cards (ISA,PCI, PCMCIA) in most every Wintel but won't install an AAUI adapter (on some Macs) or something like a PCMCIA card on the PowerBook 1400. They also tell my customers that I have sold 7300's (604e/180 processor) to, even if they have G3 upgrades that they won't even ALLOW then to get on Pipeline claiming it doesn't meet spec, when one can can view this message on their site: Pipeline Requirements [charter.com]

They also are under investigation for charging the bogus "line maintenance fee" - which they tell you if you don't have they will charge you to fix your cable, when technically (although not by law) they are a municipality/utility and must include line maintenance in costs.

It's about quality, not speed alone.

[Basje]

I value the quality of my connection above the speed. I know I can get a cable connection that is faster 'on average'. I still chose ADSL, which was more expensive too:

With ADSL I got a real IP address, not a dynamic one. The speed is more constant, so it's also fast when I'm surfing at 20:00, not only at times when I do not use it interactively. There's less downtime (less than 2 days over the past 2 years). And most importantly, to me was that the upspeed is much faster (256 vs 64 kbps). It's not all about downspeed.

Speed isn't the only criterion

[87C751]

Service level counts, too. 'Round here, cable means RoadRunner/TWC, and that means Earthlink is your ISP. No servers, not NAT-friendly, blocked ports, etc...

DSL lets you pick your own ISP, so you can select one that's a bit friendlier to geeklike usage. That can easily be worth a 160 Kbps speed deficit. (Qwest offers 640d/256u)

Re:Speed isn't the only criterion

[Chanc_Gorkon]

I have Roadrunner and use NAT. Only way they are not "NAT friendly" is if you try and call for support and then I just tell them the bare minimum. I usually say yeah I tried everything your going to tell me and I am still having a problem....NEVER mention the router, although they are ok with them, they generaly will want you to recable direct to the cable modem (as if that will magically give you an IP when their DHCP server is down). Also telling them you changed nothing usually helps a bit too (they usually accuse you of mucking with your settings...). They also "lie" and tell you your speeds will be slower through a router. Yeah they may be a little slower, but nothing you'd notice as usually your conenction to the router already runs faster anyway (100 Mbps between host and router). I wish all of the providers would have "check your list of downed servers and/or areas FIRST" as the first item.....usually they will tell you that they have no problems, but then when you cajole them to look further they say opps...the DHCP server is down....DUH! What good is connectivity if I can't get a IP?

Meaningless stats

[shoppa]

Cablevision reportedly having the fastest connections, averaging 800kbps, or 13kbps above the industry average

So, the fastest is a whopping One point six percent faster than average.

DSL providers showed huge swings in performance. AT&T WorldNet averaged 762kbps, 63 percent faster than the industry average of 467kbps. SBC came in second with 584kbps, EarthLink in third with 369kbps and Qwest in fourth with 240kbps.

Those variations couldn't have anything to do with the fact that all three of those companies are selling different speeds of service? No, it has all to do with quality, not what is advertised!

Seriously, I think that whoever wrote that article had a serious case of USA-Today-itis, the urge to chart and compare things without any relevance.

IP address

[mobets]

Yes cable is faster, and sometimes a littel cheaper, but there is one little problem. If you want a dedicated IP address with most cable companies, you have to get their "business" connection. A dedicated IP is standard with my DSL provider.

Generally...

[garcia]

What I have seen (NEPA, NW Ohio, and Minneapolis) DSL is more expensive and half the speed.

In NEPA DSL is 640/160k at $49.95/mo. Static IP over DHCP IIRC. In NW Ohio DSL is 768/128. It was around 49.95 the last time I had it (over 2 years ago) and it was Static IP. In Minneapolis (I cannot get it here in Burnsville) it's 640k w/a lot of download limits and it depends on ISP but around $55+/mo.

Cable OTOH was $49.95/mo in NW Ohio from Roadrunner. It was around 2000/384k. In Minneapolis we have ATTBI/Comcast at 1800/256 for 42.95 (it's going up though).

My IP on cable has been static, my connection is stable, and my speeds are great.

I would NEVER want DSL at the same price for 1/3 the speed.

Did they compare similar services?

[harlows_monkeys]

It doesn't say in the article what they compared. Many (most?) cable companies offer one speed plan, whereas many (most?) DSL companies offer several speed plans.

Signal Degradation

[Organic_Info]

I don't know if cable suffer the same signal (hence bandwidth) degradation over distance that effects DSL.

When BT were rolling out ADSL services in the UK you had to be within 1.5km of the exchange's. The further you are away from the exchange you get less bandwidth. Again I'm unaware of the current limits.

Does any one know if cable suffers the same?

Re:Signal Degradation

[KingDaveRa]

No, mainly because cable terminates (physically) in the distribution boxes in your street, so the cable probably only travels a few hundred yards, whereas ADSL has to go end to end to the exchange, which could be up to 3.5km Anything over that amount, and the actual amount is a bit fuzzy, is RADSL territory - Rate adaptive ADSL. Basically meaning you still get 512k downloads, but your upload suffers to compensate for the lost signalling.

Totally misleading

[BShive]

It annoys me every time I read an article like this. The actual title is "Cable beats DSL in speed race" where the speeds and reliability are entirely dependent on your area and services provider. For my area there's heavy cable saturation, and Comcast has horrible support, so I'd go DSL if it was even available. Better to ask people in your neighborhood about what highspeed they've got and/or visit dslreports.com to compare for your area, not rely on a empty article with barely any information. We don't even know when, or how they 'tested' - if they did at all!

Just the opposite

[delcielo]

I currently have both (company provided Cox cable for vpn, and DSL for my own access and running servers.)

What I've seen is that while the DSL is slower, it never goes down. In almost a year, I've not had a single time when I couldn't get to the internet. The cable, on the other hand, drops about once or twice a week now; though it's better than the 3 or 4 times a day that it was dropping during the conversion from RoadRunner to Cox.

It may have more to do with who is administrating the particular network segment you're on than the technology itself; but I have found Cox to be horribly unreliable, and their tech support people to be "less than knowledgeable" and difficult to deal with.

Re:Just the opposite

[the_bahua]

I have found that cable, while faster, is a dead end, in that even though it is faster, the cable companies don't have the balls to cap the bandwidth, or charge for the bandwidth they provide. The problem is that they can't afford(read: don't have enough bandwidth) to offer 2 Mbit/384 to each paying customer, so they attack people for eating up bandwidth.

DSL customers, on the other hand, who pay for 1.5 down can download a constant stream of data, continuously maxing out their connection, and their ISP(in most cases) will have nothing to say about it, because it really is dedicated bandwidth.

I don't care... and this is why

[Musashi Miyamoto]

It doesnt matter that Cable is incrementally faster than DSL. (DSL already seems "instant" when I surf the web)

When you use a cable modem, you are stuck with a single provider for your internet access that you cannot leave without losing your internet access. If it wasn't for DSL, there would be no competition for the cable modem market. That means when their service starts to degrade (from the low point it is already at), you can do nothing about it but go without broadband.

They don't treat your internet access like a critical service, like electricity or telephone. If your electricity went out, the governement requires the electric company to get it back on asap. Its that critical. Now that companies like Vonage are providing phone service across broadband, internet access is going to be just as critical... however, under the Bush administration, I doubt there will be any additional demands on industry...

Re:I don't care... and this is why

[Luyseyal]

It's definitely critical to me. I've been looking for a job for the last month and the best places to look are on the Net. Of course, dial-up is sufficient for that... but I also run my own little server (mail, web) on my connection. Consequently DSL is the only legal option since Roadrunner's idea of residential "service" is a cold ass ramming.

I shouldn't have to lie, cheat, and steal to get great service. This is why I use Open Source software. This is why I chose DSL over Cable, despite the bandwidth and latency differences. The cost is the same with DSL and I get great TOS/AUP.

Anyway, randomness,
-l

So does this mean

[BluGuy]

That all the FP Trolls are on cable?

Re:well, duh

[Michael's a Jerk!]

Damn right. Parallel Ports have more wires then firewire or USB, so my next external CD burner will be parallel for speed!

Once again, Slashdot has saved me time and money.

Thanks!

Bizarre

[radish]

I fail to see the validity of comparing services with different advertised rates. I have a 512kbps DSL line and I get 512kbps basically all the time. How could a 512kbps cable service be any faster? It couldn't.

Re:Bizarre

[radish]

Fair enough, that makes sense I guess, it's just I'm used to getting pretty much 100% of the theoretical speed. I must be lucky :)

For anyone in the UK who doesn't already know about it, this site offers rankings and comparisions of all the different DSL providers. I don't know of any similar sites for cable, I guess direct comparisons are less useful as there are only 2 suppliers (AFAIK). But knowing how fast an average NTL 1mbps line actually is could be useful for folks.

uk vs belgium | dsl vs cable

[alexander m]

seems born out by my own experience. in the uk you're lucky to pick up a 1Mb DSL connection. most are 512. only in a few exchanges are you lucky enough to get higher (i'm in one of those areas fortunately - 2Mbps, reliably 240kb/sec sustained)

however, 1Mb cable connections are pretty common. and as for belgium, wow. my parents have a 10Mbps cable connection - capped at 10Gb d/load, admittedly, which can hit sustained rates of 600-800kb/sec... "which is nice" :)

as with everything, there'a a lot of "incumbent inertia" at play. BT are by far the most dominant provider of broadband, they don't offer > 512kbps, so most people don't get offerd it. end of story...

US situation

[NicolaiBSD]

This article describes the relations between cable and DSL in the US only. Worldwide it is a very different story, because of vast differences in quality of infrastructure.

I work for a DSL network provider in the Netherlands. We deliver DSL connectivity to ISP's, for them to sell to their customers. The fastest connections we deliver (constant bitrate) are 8192/1536 kbits for ADSL and 2300 kbit/s for SDSL lines. This is way faster than any cable provider can deliver, they usually top at 2048/1024 kbit/s. The consumer versions of the 8 MBit ADSL connection are usually quite affordable at something like $90 a month. Elsewhere in Europe the story is similar.

IPs, routes and speed.

[kriegsman]

If you're running a server and need a static IP address, or multiple IP addresses, you need DSL (or ISDN, or a T-1, or *gasp* dedicated dialup -- don't ask.)

On the other hand, if what you want is the highest possible download speed for the lowest price (Kb per sec per dollar per month), cable is the way to go.

I know a few server-at-home geeks who actually have both DSL and cable: DSL for the static IPs for their servers, and cable for surfing. I'm thinking about going this way myself. The really interesting project will be setting up a dual-homed box to do intelligent routing of traffic across the DSL with the static IP and the (presumably faster) cable modem with the dynamic IP.

-Mark

Cablevision is being Honest

[r_arr]

I recently swtiched to optimum online powered by cablevision. I can attest that it is much faster than my old adsl service. I can d/l most linux iso's in under 30 minutes on a good server. Could't do that with adsl just wasn't fast enough.

Uh huh...

[Travoltus]

Cable modem providers typically
a) do not allow any kind of service to be running on your PC
b) are coming up with draconian "bandwidth hog" charges (for people who actually constantly ~use~ the full speed the ISP advertises)
c) get bogged down during peak hours
d) caps their upstream to 128kbps or 256kbps (all my friends on Charter, RR, and ATTBI report this cap)
e) are inherently insecure because someone can always circumvent the cable modem and snoop all the traffic on the subnet (neighborhood)

As opposed to DSL which typically
a) allows you to run any service you want
b) does not get bogged down when a lot of people on your block are getting online
c) does not hit you with "excessive usage" charges if you use your DSL service at full speed all the time
d) caps their upstream to the same speed as cable modems, and at 1.5mbps (at least for my PacBell connection) is as fast as the Cable modem service in *my* area
e) is far more secure because there's no way anyone on your block can snoop your internet traffic

SPEED is not everything. Freedom, security, and reliability of service also count. A Ford Pinto with a rocket engine is still a Ford Pinto.. except you die much faster.

Re:Uh huh...

[Spectre]

Could you define "typically"?

I've had three different cable modem accounts with different providers over the years ...

a) any service is ok (although they warn about the dangers of running open services, especially Windows file and printer sharing)
b) no excess use charges
c) no difference in throughput at all hours
d) upstream bandwidth is capped, 384K on two of the accounts, 512K on the other
e) true ... pretty inconsequential concern, anybody at your ISP can and IS snooping your connection as well

Re:Uh huh...

[jandrese]

I'm not a big fan of Comcast either, but this is pretty one sided.

Disclaimer: I'm using Comcast Cable Modem service (because I'm 13km from my CO).

Cable:
a. How many DSL providers let you run servers? My friend's DSL connection doesn't allow for servers or VPNs. Granted you can buy DSL from competing companies (which is the #1 reason it is more attractive to me than Cable, where you have to deal with your local monopoly), but the "default" service from most places disallows uploads.
b. Not yet, but soon.
c. I don't really see this myself. Maybe my area isn't so bad. I've not really heard of people complaining about this recently, alhough it was a big problem when Cable was first coming out.
d. Yep, that horrible 128k cap. Compared to DSL, which usually has a 128k/256k upload cap.
e. There is security built into the cablemodem, but the cable company doesn't really seem to keen on actually turning it on. OTOH, the packets that you can "sniff" off of the cablemodem (not easy) are the packets you were sending out to the internet anyway. If you were expecting your traffic to be secure I have news for you.

DSL:
a. Not with the plans I've seen unless you're buying from Speakeasy or some other "premium" DSL provider.
b. True, but not really an issue
c. Neither does Cable Modem....yet, at least in the states. I've had a sinking feeling that it's only a matter of time until we get hit with bandwidth caps though.
d. You know, I don't usually see many DSL connections that advertise 1.5M down. Usually I see 786/128 or 786/256. Maybe you live in an area where they are more generous with the bandwidth?

Re:Uh huh...

[Yunzil]

SPEED is not everything. Freedom, security, and reliability of service also count.

Yeah, and there's also being able to get the service at all. Speakeasy's website said I was (finally) eligible for ADSL, rather than the super-expensive SDSL they had previously said was the only option. So I signed up. Eagerly watching the install progress on the website, I was dismayed when it got stalled at step 4 with a message saying, "Order on hold pending investigation". After a week or so I got an email saying that because Verizon had wired the CO with fiber, they couldn't hook me up.

Fast forward a couple months. I decide to sign up for Cox High Speed Internet. Filled out the form on the web page, went to CompUSA and bought the modem, went to the local Cox office and picked up my self-install kit, and was using the service the same day.

I consistently get 1.4Mb/s down and about 190kb/s up. Reliability has been nearly perfect with 1 minor problem; cycling power on the modem fixed it. Sure the bandwidth is capped to 2GB per day / 30GB per month, but I don't need that much pr0n anyway.

In short, DSL is not an option, but cable rocks.

Re:no don't get cable

[horza]

until everyone up your street gets cable because of this report and yer speed drops.... ;)

Cable modem scales a lot better. They can have one hub serving an wide area, and if the speed drops then the area can be installed by installing a 2nd hub and splitting the area into two. With DSL, every line has to go all the way into a (physically restricted in size) exchange.

In Surrey, I had both cable modem and DSL. Cable modem was both faster and had better ping time for gaming.

Phillip.

Blanket Statements Don't Work For This Stuff

[Mean_Nishka]

In my neck of the woods (Connecticut) I have both DSL and cable service available. Both services offer 1500/256 for about $45 a month. I have the cable service at home, the DSL service at work. There's no difference in speed. Both ramp up to their full potential 24/7. Competition is great!!

However one consideration that may be lacking from this analysis is how Comcast (and many DOCSIS providers) handle capping the connections.

On my Comcast cable modem, the cap is regulated by my local cable modem. So if I'm downloading from an extremely fast host, my connection will momentarily burst into the 3 megabit/second range. The cable modem will then halt all communications for the remainder of that second. So if you have a NAT situation going, and one of the machines is nailing the bandwidth, it will slow down the other machines in the house.

There's a more indepth discussion Here.

---

DSL over shared cable anyday of the week.

[pitdingo]

Here is a horribly written story. It claims the average cable modem user gets higher speed than a DSL user which is laughable. It makes no distinction between the different DSL packages: 640k and 1.5Mb. Cable really only has one package: 1.5Mb or on rare occasions, an unlimited bandwidth(up to 8Mb). So when they say the best average time for cable is 800Kb, that really shows you how poorly cable performs. An average of 468Kb for DSL is really not bad considering the majority of people have 640Kb. To get the 1.5 you have to be within 15,000 wire feet length of your central office. Any speed test i have ever run on my connection gets around 1.3Mb. My neighbor has a Comcast Cable modem, and apparently more of my neighbors do too as his speed goes from around 1.2Mb to 280Kb(LOL) on speed tests. The simple fact is, you can not beat the dedicated access of DSL. Cable lines are saturated with HDTV, Digital Cable, Analog Cable and shared Internet access.

Worst. Article. Ever.

[Greg W.]

What an utterly appalling waste of time! They talk about the speeds of these services using a single number, as if they offered symmetric capacities. Everyone knows that the common residential Internet services are asymmetric, with upload typically being one-half to one-tenth of the download. But they don't even talk about upload, which is where DSL stomps all over cable's ass.

Nor do they talk about terms of service, which is where DSL stomps all over what was left of cable's ass. Read a typical cable modem service ToS some time -- go on, I dare you! You can't run anything but Windows, you can't run NAT, you can't run services, you can't leave your computer on when you're not in front of it. Now read a DSL ToS for comparison.

But this "article" (more like propaganda from the cable companies) doesn't discuss any of that. They pretend that the only thing that matters is how fast you can download pr0n. And if that's what you want -- to sit in front of a mouse-driven boob tube and salivate over pictures all day long -- then sure, cable modem service is for you. Go knock yourself out.

Re:Obvious

[mattmcl]

I've also had both...Verizon DSL, and RCN cable modem (which seems to be another notable omission from the study). RCN is much much faster. Their new "MegaModem" service claims to have 3 megs down and 768kB up. Although I've never had speed THAT fast, it does do very well (in excess of 2 megs) when downloading from good sites.

dsl?

[mobby_6kl]

Here (in the Czech Republic) we are actualy happy with anythning other than dial-up, but cable/dsl is very expensive. I think I would prefer cable, but it's not availible here. Until this February (A)DSL wasn't availible in the whole country, not only on particular streets/blocks. Cable is somewhat cheaper but is availible only in limited locations.

ADSL (what they call basic)
192/64 --- $45.9
320/128 -- $80.4
ADSL (standart)
256/64 --- $114.9
512/128 -- $204.5
1024/254-- $390.7

cable
128 / 96 --$37.2
320 / 96 --$51
192 / 128--$103
320 / 256--$206

DSL is catching up in some places

[CausticPuppy]

The article is talking about averages, so it shouldn't be surprising that there are a few cases where DSL is faster than cable.

In my area, I think more people get a solid 1.5Mbit ADSL connection than in other areas of the country. That's as fast as cable is around here, but DSL also gives you 256k upstream while the cable companies here (Atlanta) seem to only offer 128k upstream.

There are 2 reasons for the fast DSL speeds around Atlanta:

1) Bellsouth has installed many remote terminals, so even if you're 18,000 feet away from a CO, chances are you're much closer to a RT where the DSLAM actually is, so many people get much faster speeds than they expected to get.

2) Fiber to the Curb. It's all over the place here. The technology for allowing ADSL over a fiber connection is very new (less than 6 months in deployment, via proprietary equipment from Marconi) and essentially means your DSLAM is only as far away as the fiber pedestal in your front yard. In a house with new cat-5 wiring, that is basically as close to ideal lab conditions for ADSL that you can get. In some areas BellSouth had already deployed a different technology that had fiber with integrated data support (IFITL) that was basically ethernet straight into the house, no modem required. Between 3Mb and 4Mb download speeds for the lucky few that have it. That probably was not included in this survey though since it's neither DSL nor cable.

I'd say the biggest difference between DSL and Cable is that DSL is that DSL is a switched network, even though it is still shared bandwidth at some point. Cable is a broadcast network, your cablemodem just listens for the data intended for it.

DSL also seems to have lower and more consistent ping times, better for gaming. If you have a ton of cable modems on a node, the ping times should increase (I don't know by how much) because only one cablemodem on a node can transmit at a time. For uploads, the cablemodems are assigned timeslices during which they are allowed to transmit. It's probably on the order of milliseconds but it seems to me that's enough to affect ping times.

Cable? or DSL?

[mwing]

What are we actually comparing here? While the speed in both cases could be i.e. 1 Mb/s, are we comparing that or the actual throughput of the connection?

The speed of my cable (525/256) has been steady for as long as I can remember giving me about 60 KB/s download speeds. I had, before I moved sometime ago, a cablemodem that was uncapped (the pro model as the ISP calls it :) and I got speeds around 500-800 KB/s. Still the speed the ISP promised was only 1 Mb. So does this mean that my old cable modem was faster than DSL?

Most definately it was cheaper than a DSL of 1 Mb, but also the service level was much worse, and my ping was with the old modem terrible. The speed however made up for the lack of support and the bad level of service and it's outtages.

The bad thing with the old modem was that the bandwith was shared, which sometimes made my connection unusable with speeds below that of a dial-up connection. Was my modem then slower than a DSL?

How about comparing cable modems to LAN connections?

--
Tell me why I had to be a powerslave. I don't want to die, I'm a god, why can't I live on?

Not fast if you want extra features.

[SoupIsGood Food]

I've got Cox, and to get a hard IP I can run a server on, I have to shell out $69/month for a 128k symetrical link. (It's 3mbps down and 256k up at $40 for a DHCP account.) Not too speedy compared to what Speakeasy's shilling for the same price... but Verizon has not upgraded the local switch to DSL-capable, and probably never will.

While we're on the topic of Speakeasy, I once had a 780k symmetrical link from them for $80/month. They no longer offer anything anywhere near that speed/price ratio... they've taken a huge step back. Yet, as has been noted elsewhere, DSL in Japan is dirt cheap for a pipe that can saturate a 10b-T link on the downstream.

This is what deregulation gets you.

The "game over" is in the next generation wireless. Goodbye, cable! Goodbye, POTS! Sprint already offers 155k symetrical links for $50/month... uncapped and unmetered. All you can eat. The other big wireless vendors will either quickly follow suit, or get eaten alive by Sprint. If they can even get a reliable link at 1.5mbps at $50/month, they'll steal huge share away from DSL and Cable at twice that speed. Everyone with a notebook will want it. Unlike on copper, wireless RF sees no cost benefit from throttling upload, so I can see hard IPs and servers being the deal maker for premium "geek packages." Then the other broadband vendors will either shape up, or get run out of town on a rail.

SoupIsGood Food

Re:Not fast if you want extra features.

[infinite9]

The "game over" is in the next generation wireless.

I have wireless broadband. (CO is too far and the cable company has brain damage) $65 a month, $300 install fee for the antenna on the roof. They claim it's 10megabit, but I haven't seen that speed. It is fast though. It seems as though I'm no longer the bottleneck. IIRC, I was getting around 350K a second with bittorrent. I can get about 80k a second on winmx and that's with a lot of other transmissions going. Ping times from chicago to yahoo are 20-30ms. It's noticably faster than my connection at work. It's ultra stable. I've had it for about six months and it's gone down twice that I know of. It's symmetrical. No caps. No static ip though and no hosting servers.

Market Schemes Destroy Cable

[Aetrix]

I live in a medium sized apartment complex (4 buildings with 24 1-4 BR Apts). Recently our local cable provider signed an exclusive contract with our landlord to offer cable TV and "high speed internet" (read: cable modem) to all of our residents. This wonderful addition was included in rent with no additional charge (yet.) The problem with this - the cable connection is slow as shite because every Tom, Dick and Harry (and their 9 kids) is using the connection!

I'm now seeing about 3 spam snail mails coming to my apartment advertising specials from the same company (That I suspect are canvasing the neighborhood around our apt complex) it's going to get even slower!

Are these cable companies shooting themselves in the foot by completely flooding their market? Both from a marketing perspective, and a ISP perspective, this is a BAD IDEA.

DSL speeds/Cable modem

[bloosqr]

It just so happens I was hunting around for broadband here in philadelphia and ended up signing up for DSL service. Our cable service is Comcast (which I believe is based in philadelphia). The main issue I had w/ Comcast was you had to buy their cable service or got the $5 tacked onto your bill + installation fees of $100 + box rental and of course the NAT issue. The standard "safe" DSL here is verizon (also my local phone company) which offers 768 down/128k up for ~50 a month or ~40 w/ a year contract. What I ended up signing up for was a company called digizip based in nyc. For $50 a month (or $45 w/ a year contract + their LD) you get 1.5mbit down/768 up + 5 static IP addresses + no installation fee etc etc. There is a company called "cyberonic" that seems to offer something pretty similar. Having "mad" upstream bandwidth at 768k and 5 static IP addresses pretty much did it for me (No port blocking, any # of machines etc). In any case I just ordered this, can't vouch for the reality of the situation but it seemed to me a better deal than cablemodems w/out any guarantee (but w/ typical download speeds pretty decent) and not having to "hide" my machines..

-avi

Population density = cheap internet

[SuperBanana]

Everything else in Japan and especially in Tokyo is expensive. But Internet is as cheap as you can imagine.

Two words- population density. Remember, Japan is a fraction of the size of the US; US providers have to deal with the expense of all the areas where population density is much, much less(except in very concentrated areas); the guys in the city may be cheap to wire up, but the guys out in the burbs cost a small fortune(and there's fewer of 'em.) You can't, for the most part, charge drastically different rates- the city people subsidize the suburbs.

Besides, a large percentage of the US is perfectly happy with dialup...

Re:Population density = cheap internet

[jonadab]

> the guys in the city may be cheap to wire up, but the guys out in
> the burbs cost a small fortune(and there's fewer of 'em.)

No, that's just it: there are not fewer of them, or at least not
substantially fewer. For every big[1] city, there are several
hundred[2] small-to-medium communities. The average population
of these small-to-medium communities is around five or ten thousand
persons[2] each[3]. Some are larger, some are smaller. Some are
near the big cities (suburbs) and many are not. None of them have
the impressive numbers of people like the big cities. But when you
add them all up, it comes to a lot[2] of people. Then there are
the people who live five minutes' drive outside the city limits...
a typical non-suburban small community of ten thousand people has
a couple thousand[2] more of those people living around it. (This
is less a factor for suburbs, because they are mostly surrounded by
other municipalities.) And then there are the twenty-some
percent[4] of the population who live in rural areas. When we
get wired broadband to _them_, we'll have set a new standard for
what it means to be a first-world nation. (Currently, mere phone
lines to every house will just about satisfy the communications
infrastructure requirements.)

Now, some states (California) are more urban, but then some
(Indiana) are more rural. Anyway, my point is that we tend to
think of "most" people living in the big cities, but while most
people do live in a municipality, a great many of them live in
ones we would not generally consider to be quite urban.

[1] Say, a million or more. Some people would draw the line
a bit lower, but I had to pick a size to talk about. Is
a city of a hundred thousand people really "urban"? Can
people in cities that size all get cheap broadband?

[2] Statistics courtesy of Jonadab's Flagrant Guesstimation.

[3] It depends what you count. If you count every community with
a name, there are more like a thousand of them per big[1]
city, but it brings the average population way down. If you
only count actual municipalities, there are some n in the low
hundreds per big city, but the population is a bit higher.

[4] Almost one-third in Ohio, which is about average; it's much
higher in some states, and much lower in others. However,
the states with the lower percentages of rural population
have the higher populations, so the overall percentage is
somewhat less than what you get if you average the numbers
from each state.

Re:Uhmm...

[haroldK]

Nope. 350KB/s is 2.8Mb/s

i'm a cablevision subscriber...

[vena]

i run SMTP, and while port 80 is blocked, a web server on 81. they have no problem with this. we have no bandwidth hog charges, but if you use a ton of bandwidth over a long period of time, they will put a temporary one-week cap on your downstream. i have no upstream cap (same up speed as down). they permit me to use NAT and a firewall. the service has not gone down in over a month.

compare this to Verizon DSL i previously had: 5 (FIVE) months waiting to install, constant downtime (at least twice a week), capped upstream and serious lag.

thought you might be interested.

Yep, but...

[PotatoHead]

I have choice of ISP with DSL here in Portland. (www.spiretech.com BTW.)

Comcast has the cable service here. They fuck with you and my Spiretech does not.

So I trade speed for:

- Shell access via SSH to my account on their server.

- Some web space and basic services on their end.

- Sane user policy

- Good service

- Flexible billing. (I run a 6 month plan)

- Choice of computing platform and modem.

Unless I am downloading ISOs every day, the connection speed really does not matter. Most wait times are due to server side crap (mainly ad servers and such) not transfer speed.

Sure the cable is fast, but you have to register each computer, cannot run servers, get port scanned to make sure, vpn not allowed unless you pay commercial rates, poor customer service, drain bramaged techs, phone calls and letters and e-mail for additional cable TV services (Pay Per view) and I suspect content discrimination.

That is what choice is about.

Choose wisely, choose a service that lets you choose your provider.

For me that is clearly DSL regardless of speed.

Jumping on the reliability bandwagon...

[D'Arque Bishop]

Right now I have DSL through SBC. I used to have service through Time-Warner/Roadrunner, but gave it up last year. Why, you may ask? Simple: reliability.

Everything was fine with Roadrunner for about a year or so, until we started having line issues. After that, about every six months, we would end up having issues with the physical cable going from our junction box out back to the house. Each time, it would take us more than one call to get someone out, because the quality of techs were rather... well, varied. ("I know you don't support Linux... but the fact that the `Cable' light on my cable modem isn't lit tells me it's not a problem with my cable modem, you know?") The second to last time it happened, the tech lied and said he came out when someone was home at the time and never saw him, and the line had very obviously not been touched. The LAST time it happened, it took them TWO WEEKS to send someone out and fix it. The day after that, we started investigating DSL.

Frankly, we've been much happier with the DSL. We started off with DirecTV DSL and since moved to SBC... and not only is the service more reliable so far than Roadrunner's (excluding DirecTV getting out of the market... otherwise only slightly slower speeds but steadier connection), we're allowed to run servers and can host our own domains on it. Heck, for $15 a month more I get static IP's, which means no more worrying about the DHCP server switching my home address on me.

Your mileage may vary, of course, but so far I've found that in my area, at least (north Houston), DSL has shaped up to be more reliable than cable service.

Just my $.02...

and in other news...

[cr@ckwhore]

... and in other news, "Apples beat Oranges in a taste test, experts insist".

RR Cable smokes!

[pair-a-noyd]

I had SBC DSL and it SUCKED. Badly.
I constantly fought with them, they never got it to work right, had to unplug all but one phone just to get the modem to sync, very poor speed vs what was promised.

constant over billing, double and tripple billing, billing for installs that never happened, you name it, average over $100 a month in over billing, often worse than that.

Switched to RR and man it just smokes. That's all there is to it. All that FUD that SBC put out about your neighbors pulling the line down was just BS.

Cable is much, much, much faster and they don't rape you in the hiney every month like the DSL idiots do.

well here it's wrong...

[WebCowboy]

In Calgary, my next door neighbours had Shaw cable internet, and it had slightly higher peak rates than my DSL (up to nearly 300 kilbytes per second), however they basically enjoyed that transfer rate at about 2 to 3 am or during non-peak for a few days after Shaw did whatever monthly upgrading they mentioned on their tech support lines (which usually involved losing internet entirely from Friday just after lunch to Saturday morning). Aside from that, the speed hovered between 15 and 150 kB/s.

On the other hand, my DSL connection was ALWAYS 100 to 150 kB/s. I had maybe ONE day of outage time in an entire year. Then CADVision was bought by TELUS. They intgrated CADvision customers into TELUS infrastructure, and offered piss poor customer service and support during and after the ordeal (my business service lost all it's fixed IPs, they messed up my DNS hosting, etc.) It's my understanding that Shaw has gotten past it's growing pains and now is better for customer service and a bit more consistent where TELUS has deteriorated.

No matter--TELUS chased me away and did NOTHING to lure me back--some customers are even getting so pissed off with them that they are switching their local and long distance phone as well--mostly to make a point about crappy service. I kept the phone but switched to Radiant DSL. I pay C$10/month LESS and consistently get 2 to 2.5 MBps--EXACTLY what was advertised (I got the "business connectivity 2.5" package)! I save money because they make the crap I can do myself optional (I don't need space on their web server and 10 email accounts and DNS hosting--I provide my own DNS, web and email servers). Shaw doesn't offer packages like that--I have to take what they offer and pay maybe 40% more.

So, overall the situation hasn't changed. In Calgary I'd say cable has improved a lot, but some DSL providers still have the edge and are still more consistent.

Upload speed and static IP addresses

[stonewolf]

Download speed isn't the only thing that is important in picking a broadband service.

I have had both AOLTimeWarner Road Runner cable modem service and SBC DSL service. There is no question that Road Runner gave me faster download speed. But, even though my DSL upload speed is capped at 256Mbps. It is actually faster than the upload speed I got out of Road Runner.

Upload speed is important to me because I run a website, and several other servers, out of my loft. Which brings us to other important differences. The ability to get a static IP address and the ability to connect mulitple computers to a single broadband connection.

In my area, SBC sells a static IP service with no limit to the number of computers I can have on my LAN for $78.95/month. While the equivalent service from Road Runner costs $200/month. So, DSL can be a much better deal if you have more than one computer or ever want to run a server. As the number of computers in the home goes up from one per home to more than one per person, the ability to connect mulitple computers become very important.

Customer service is also important. In all the years I have been a customer of Time Warner, both for cable service and broadband, I have only ever had one serious complaint about their service, and they apologized, fixed the problem, apologized again, sent me a letter of apology, and gave me a couple of months of service for free. In other words, they made me feel like a respected and valued customer.

OTOH, In the first month I had SBC DSL service, I was been hung up on by 3 customer service representatives, been promised call backs that never happened, and been billed for a service that has never been fully delivered. In fact, I have filed a PUC complaint over the problem. All I can say is that it only took a week to get them to stop blocking inbound port 80 and outbound port 25. But, to this day they refuse to admit that it ever happened.

I also can not access any of the Yahoo! services they promise because the license for using the Yahoo! service bars you from running servers over your DSL line. Which is exactly what the Deluxe S package is advertised for doing. So, to use the Yahoo! part of the service I have to agree not to use the static IP capabilities of the service. Since I can not access the Yahoo! services I also can not access any of the SBC online help because access to online help is based on your SBC Yahoo! userid/pasword.

I guess that to save $120/month I can live without the Yahoo! part of the deal, but it the way SBC has treated me has really pissed me off. ASAP the ONLY SBC service I have will be DSL.

Stonewolf

In the UK...

[Realistic_Dragon]

DSL is about the same as cable, but unquestionably better for most people who have a choice.

DSL is capped at 512 down 256 up, cable 600/128 (for most home users).

The extra upload bandwidth for DSL users it a boon for geeky types, as it makes saturation harder, but 128 is ok for home use.

Cable in the UK however is almost without exception:

Servers restricted or banned.
Download caps of 1gb/day.
Horrible contention at peak times.
For many users, when the 201st person logs onto their cable section all the users get booted off.
Bad news and mail service.
Trasparent (slow) proxy/cache for http.
Single dynamic IP.
SMTP capture/redirects.
24 hour (in the phone queue) tech support.
Crap modems which need rebooting once a day.
MAC address locking, one host connected only.

For the same price as cable on DSL you get (this exculdes users of BT Openwoe, but with DSL you can choose your ISP):

Servers ok.
Almost no contention (avg rates at peak time are 460k/sec).
1 static IP address.
Good mail and news service.
No SMTP or HTTP proxy.
No download caps.
Very high reliability.
Choose your own modem, which works.
No MAC address locking and positive support for NAT DSL gateway users.

And for less than £5/mth more than cable you get (in addition):

8 static IP addresses (/29).
Decent technical support 9-5.

And if you live in London, for an additional £10/mth you get 2mb down during off peak hours. Sweet!

I will never change to cable :o)

the comparison most people don't understand...

[green1]

Disclaimer: I work for the local telco
Now that said, I'm not in marketing, I'm a field tech, and I get this question a lot, I have a fair amount of experience with both systems, (my parents are on cable (no dsl in their area yet) and I have a few good friends working for the local cable company) so I'll try to be relatively unbiased here.

I'm often asked "how does DSL compare to cable" the real answer is it doesn't, the two are different technologies. and can't be dirrectly compared to come up with an answer of "X is faster than Y", here are a few points to consider...

The theoretical end of things:
-the local cable company uses cable modems with a maximum possible speed of 10Mb/s downstream (I can't remember the upstream)
-the local telco uses equipment (DSLAMs and DSL modems) with a maximum possible speed of 8Mb/s downstream and 1MB/s upstream

The administrative side of things:
-the local cable company throttles this to 1.5Mb/s downstream (I can't remember what they set the upstream to)
-the local telco throttles this to 1.5Mb/s downstream and 640kb/s upstream

The practical downside of things:
-Cable is usage dependant, the cable system is based on one line running in to the neighborhood and splitting to all the houses, so the more people online at a time the slower the connection.
-DSL is distance dependant, you've got just over 3km of cable before you can't get DSL, and if you're over 2-2.5km you won't be getting full speeds, so just because you have a phoneline doesn't mean you can get DSL.

The practical upside of things:
-Cable being shielded can run for amazing lengths with verry little loss allowing extended distances, if you have cable tv around here you can probably get cable internet
-DSL runs on the phoneline, and you have your own line from your house to the phone exchange, so you don't share bandwidth with anyone untill you get back to the phone exchange, (you do from there on out just like you would with any ISP but there's lots to go around (at least around here there is))

The practical summary:
-if you live a long way from a phone exchange in a community full of people who use the computer only for their email once a day. Cable is going to be faster.
-if you live really close to the phone exchange in a community full of slashdotters. DSL is going to be faster.

Now most of us don't live in either one of those sittuations, so around here at least, the two compare verry closely on the home packages. the main difference is stability (the kind affecting speed, the kind affecting uptime isn't discussed here), on DSL you get what you get, if you got speeds of 1Mb/s when they hooked you up, you'll probably continue to get that speed, whereas on cable you may get 1.5Mb/s at slack times and 500-600kb/s at busy times, it all depends on what type of usage you have and at what times you make use of it.

Final Disclaimer: I only compared the "home" packages here, and only on the point of speed, there are many other factors to consider when getting a connection, both companies offer many packages catering to different needs at different costs, do your research before going with either, just keep the stuff mentioned here in mind because the marketting departments of neither company will ever mention the downsides to their own system....

This test is retarded...

[CyberBill]

This is one of the stupidest tests I have ever seen.

They are comparing DSL to Cable for bandwidth... without giving specs on the DSL. DSL is not the same as cable!! Cable is a community shared network, and DSL is a DIRECT line. If you buy DSL at 768k, your going to get 768k! They completely forgot to mention this little tidbit of information in the article.

Sure, your basic cable connection dollar for dollar is going to be faster. $35 will get you a cable internet connection, its usually atleast $50 for DSL ( of the 768/256 category).

I just dont get how 'technical articles' can be written by people who obviously have no technical background.

-Bill

Re:Don't make stuff up!

[KD7JZ]

I am sorry to say, sir, that you are incorrect.
ADSL stands for Asymetric DSL, meaning that it
reserves more of the bandwidth for the downstream
than the upstream.

Almost always the DSL _line_ is running at a
fixed speed. True throughput depends on the amount
of congestion and oversubscription that the
ISP allows. In our DSL service (>500 customers)
we engineer for zero congestion on our
DS-3's outbound to the NAPs in Seattle, Denver,
and Calgary.

Speed is not the only factor...

[KC7GR]

Far from it. Speed, in fact, is about second or third on my priorities list when it comes to looking at broadband.

What is a priority for me is whether I can be completely self-hosted. Find me a cable provider that will give me six static IP's, let me be completely authoritative on DNS for all the domains I host, and let me handle my own mail, web, and FTP servers, AND do it all for less than I'm currently paying for my DSL line and ISP, and I might consider switching.

In summary; Don't just look at the line speed. Ask yourself what you want to do with it. Somehow, I doubt any of the cable providers are willing to even consider letting their users do any or all of the above for less than hundreds of $$ per month (if at all).