Cable Internet vs. DSL

[RBFC]

We're currently using Comcast cable internet service (typical speed here of 20mBps) on our home wi-fi network. Our local phone provider, CenturyLink, is offering a 20mBps DSL package that would "bundle" with our phone/DirecTV service that would offer savings over our current internet service. Does anyone have thoughts as to the quality and reliability of the DSL services? Apparently, you must place a filter device on every attached phone in the home, as the line now carries the internet data as well.

I've hesitated this long because every time I talked to a representative from CenturyLink, I got a different story about the available speeds in my area and the final costs! Please note that I have no complaints with the quality of internet from Comcast, just considering the savings.

Thanks,

Lee

 

[GaryProtein]

. . . . Apparently, you must place a filter device on every attached phone in the home, as the line now carries the internet data as well.. . . Thanks,

Lee

I too, was considering changing, but did not know you had to get a filter on every telephone in the house. What do the "filters" do to the rest of the telephone system? I have a lot of phones in my house. I won't say how many because my accountant, lawyer and psychiatrist have advised me to keep that a secret!

 

[FrantzM]

I too, was considering changing, but did not know you had to get a filter on every telephone in the house. What do the "filters" do to the rest of the telephone system? I have a lot of phones in my house. I won't say how many because my accountant, lawyer and psychiatrist have advised me to keep that a secret!

I would not go as far as calling it a rule. Cable is faster than DSL... Most of the time and pretty much for most people ALl the time. It is due to the Cable infrastructure which is often what they call a HFC (Hybrid Fiber Coaxial) network. The network core is mostly fiber thus extremely high speed and the "last mile", that is, the portion from the main network to your home is coaxial. Such networks are in principle faster than DSL where the last mile uses basic 2-wires copper pair that weren't meant in the beginning to carry high speed. They were meant to carry voice, through some artifices we got DSL which is a way to force the 2-wire to carry high speed information albeit at a reduced distance. Coaxial cables OTOH are inherently meant for RF/high Speed.
All this to tell you that likely your Comcast is already as fast as what the DSL competitor is likely to offer and it can get to be much faster without much effort or investment from the cable company ... Not a Comcast fan if you ask me but they routinely and without much fanfare reach 20 MB/s downloads and 3 Mb/s upload in Miami... Almost Trivial

 

[mep]

I am a Comcast customer/victim. I still currently have Comcast for my TV, but I dropped their internet service because it was way too unreliable. In my area, the fastest DSL I can get is 3 MB, but it is very reliable. And when you are married to a Farmville addict, reliability is much more important than speed. Sometime in the next hundred years, my phone company is going to have fiber optic service available and then I can join the rest of you in the civilized world with fast internet speeds.

As for the DSL phone filters, you need them on every jack you have a land-line phone plugged into, otherwise all you hear is noise. The phone companies give them to you when you sign up for DSL service.

 

[AMP]

From a networking technology standpoint DSL is a better solution as your pipe isn't shared with your neighbors. IF DSL had the bandwidth from the telco's central office to your home to support really fast speeds then it would be a no-brainer as the usage of other people in your neighborhood wouldn't impact your available bandwidth. Unfortunately, the copper wire infrastructure is really old in most areas and prone to noise which makes getting really fast speeds out of it really difficult.

The cable companies have the benefit of a ton of bandwidth into the neighborhoods and to each home. The only downside is that bandwidth is shared.

Oddly, I was the first residential DSL customer in the US when US West (became Qwest then became Century Link) rolled out the service in Phoenix. Through a glitch and lack of training on their end my request for service was approved when the project was in the early marketing phases. Rather than turn around and deny service they went ahead and installed it. After 2 weeks they eventually got it working and at the time (1997) it was insanely fast. Cable bandwidth grew at a much faster rate and by 2002 I switched to cable and haven't looked back. For $60/mo I get consistent 35mb/s upload and download speeds which were just upgraded today to about 50mb/s. For $30/mo more I could get 150mb/s... simply can't beat that.

As an aside the filters are needed because the DSL carrier is piggybacked on top of your regular voice service. The voice service is analog and in a fixed bandwidth. The digital DSL signal rides on top of that at a higher frequency. The filters are just a low pass device that keeps you from hearing the DSL "noise" on your phone. One alternative to installing the filters on every phone is to install one filter at the demarcation point (the box that connects the telco's wiring to your house) and then run a separate line to your DSL modem. The wiring that feeds all of the voice jacks in the house gets handled with one filter and the DSL modem is fed via its own wire before the filter is inserted.

 

[FrantzM]

AMP is entirely correct. In practice Cable consistently trump DSL despite the shared nature of cable.

 

[DonH50]

I have Comcast cable and it has been OK. For a while there it seemed to go out about once or twice a month but I can't recall the last time that happened (save power outages and neighbors cutting the cable line). DSL was not available in my area when I upgraded, and later friends who tried it found slow and unreliable performance and they are all on cable now. Probably depends much on where you are (distance to phone CO) and the local service. I would ask around in your area and see what people like.

 

[amirm]

We have DSL from CenturyTell at our vacation house. It is pretty far from their switch so we get 8 mbit/sec. But it is 8 mbit/sec all the time. We have comcast at home and get 30 mbit/sec but of course it fluctuates. I know others with DSL problems and some with Comcast.

Why not ask them if they are going to make sure you get 20 mbit/sec or you want to cancel and get your money back?

 

[GaryProtein]

AMP is entirely correct. In practice Cable consistently trump DSL despite the shared nature of cable.

Not in my house it doesn't. My house seems to be the last leaf on the smallest twig on the last minor branch of the cable tree. As far as I'm concerned, my cable is just plain slow.

One of our members shared a speed test result with a Verizon provider a while back that was more than fifteen times faster than mine. I'm more than jealous.

 

[NorthStar]

From a networking technology standpoint DSL is a better solution as your pipe isn't shared with your neighbors. IF DSL had the bandwidth from the telco's central office to your home to support really fast speeds then it would be a no-brainer as the usage of other people in your neighborhood wouldn't impact your available bandwidth. Unfortunately, the copper wire infrastructure is really old in most areas and prone to noise which makes getting really fast speeds out of it really difficult.

The cable companies have the benefit of a ton of bandwidth into the neighborhoods and to each home. The only downside is that bandwidth is shared.

Oddly, I was the first residential DSL customer in the US when US West (became Qwest then became Century Link) rolled out the service in Phoenix. Through a glitch and lack of training on their end my request for service was approved when the project was in the early marketing phases. Rather than turn around and deny service they went ahead and installed it. After 2 weeks they eventually got it working and at the time (1997) it was insanely fast. Cable bandwidth grew at a much faster rate and by 2002 I switched to cable and haven't looked back. For $60/mo I get consistent 35mb/s upload and download speeds which were just upgraded today to about 50mb/s. For $30/mo more I could get 150mb/s... simply can't beat that.

As an aside the filters are needed because the DSL carrier is piggybacked on top of your regular voice service. The voice service is analog and in a fixed bandwidth. The digital DSL signal rides on top of that at a higher frequency. The filters are just a low pass device that keeps you from hearing the DSL "noise" on your phone. One alternative to installing the filters on every phone is to install one filter at the demarcation point (the box that connects the telco's wiring to your house) and then run a separate line to your DSL modem. The wiring that feeds all of the voice jacks in the house gets handled with one filter and the DSL modem is fed via its own wire before the filter is inserted.

---- That's an excellent post; truly enjoyed reading it AMP.

* I used to have three filters in the past (for three phone lines); but then they did exactly what you just explained (in red).
...No more filters now to install at the phone jack exits.

________________

As an aside, did you know that in Canada we pay the highest rates of cellular phone, of the entire world?
On average $10 more a month than our brothers from down South.
...And roughly ten times more than in India.

The reason? ...Because not enough competition.