I know this is a volatile topic but I'll ask anyway. I'm in the process of relocating. My long-time DSL provider isn't in the area where I'll be moving to. They do have a Cable service. I've had DSL for years. Never had cable. I'm so-so satisfied with my current provider. I'd resign, but I'm very open to changing. As far as I'm concerned, I'm starting with a clean slate. I could go with a DSL or a Cable provider. Any opinions on which is better? On which providers are better than others? I've been looking around but the results I'm getting are confusing.
#SDNY he's all yours. -- Michael Steele 5110 Posts 3/03
Posted - Feb 26 2012 : 1:53PM
If you haven't already, look at dslreports.com to get info and reviews on the providers in your new area. I'm envious of the people who live where that FiOS service is available.
Cable is typically faster than DSL. FiOS is typically faster than cable. The problem with using a cable company as your ISP is that your speed will be affected by other people who live near you. If you think of cable Internet service as 1 big pipe full of bandwidth, that serves an entire neighborhood. If you are the only one using that bandwidth, you have a lot of speed. However, if lots of people are attempting to use that bandwidth, then your speed will slow down. With a fiber optic service, such as FiOS, everybody has their own little pipe of bandwidth, which isn't affected by other customers of that service. So, your speed is always consistent. While you won't have as much speed as cable during off-peak times, you will be much faster during peak times. I went from DSL to FiOS a few years ago and I love it.
Fat bottomed girls make the rockin' world go round! 1551 Posts 5/09
Posted - Feb 27 2012 : 2:29AM
A few years ago, I watched a crew of workers install a thick, orange-colored cable along the highway, underground, two miles from my cabin. Is that a fiber optic cable? Where I live, the neighbor's trees block the view of a satellite that provides high speed internet service.
^Yeah the bright orange is fiber optic cable. There should be small marker posts alongside that highway; you can stop and read the label on the posts, it will say "buried fiber optic cable" or something like that. There's the same thing right outside my house (200 feet from the cable) but I don't know if it's connected to anything. No salesmen are knocking on my door or stuffing my mailbox with flyers trying to sell me fiber optic service.
FiOS can tell you whether service is available at your address if you enter your phone # on their website. I would imagine that any other company running a fiber optic service will have similar functionality.
^ It amuses me that they can tell me whether or not I have it, since I live in an apartment the answer is no - yet they can't be bothered to tell their email service to stop sending me fliers urging me to get it.
If it's available on your street, yet the owner oft the apartment building just hasn't allowed FiOS to wire the building, they may be emailing you in hopes that enough tenants complain to management to cause them to allow FiOS into the building.
I've had DSL for years. It's nowhere near fast but it's tolerable 80% of the time. It's very rare that anything ever goes wrong but when it does, it's almost always a DNS problem (Which, if I'm not mistaken, is the ISP's server going down). I would guess that kind of error would happen from time to time no matter which flavor of service you have. It's irritating when it does happen though because your service just disappears without warning and often stays down for hours.
I just moved not three weeks ago. Before, I had DSL. Cable was available if I wanted it, but I was somewhat averse to dealing with that cable company again, so I stuck with the phone company and DSL. But in a new town, I got cable. Speedtest wise, my download speeds are now about three times faster than before, and my upload speed is probably more like four or five times faster than before. But for what it's worth, my old address was in a fairly small town in a rural county, and the DSL available there may not have been as fast as what's available in larger markets, and at my new address, the cable company is next door to my apartment complex. But I did have problems sometimes before with my DSL disconnecting or not giving me the speed I was supposed to be getting. Though some of that may have been limitations with the internal phone wiring inside my old building, or with that particular company's infrastructure. I've had no problems with my cable connection so far. Though my computer may be acting up itself so much that I never get the chance to notice if my internet speed isn't what it should be. I'm about due for either a new computer or to back up all of my data and reinstall the OS.
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kkieerot Deactivated User
17 Posts 5/12
Posted - May 19 2012 : 12:44PM
I would prefer DSL any time, much more stable data transfer rate...
Introducing Kalani Luana
Posted - Feb 26 2012 : 12:31PM