OT Cable Broadband Rocks

[Lawrence L'Hote]

I've been suffering with dialup for what seems like forever and finally I made the jump to Mediacom cable internet with this new computer. Sure its pricey, but I think once you try it you won't go back to the dark ages of phone line phandango. I tried to subscribe to DSL but the piddlin' phone company in my town, Century Telephone, does't have it where I am. So youse guys that post those humongous sized files with pittchurs to abpw or abpf, I'll not belly ache about it. Besides you get 10 meg of webspace for each of 6 email addresses that come with the service.

Larry

[Leon]

Welcome to the wonderful world of broadband.... The part I appreciate the most is not having to wait to sign on and never having to sign off. At least with DSL I do not have to sign on when using a router. Something to also consider with DSL that may shoot you out of the saddle anyway is that even if you telephone company does offer DSL, you must be relative close to the main office. IIRC 3 miles away is beginning to stretch the limits and 5 miles is out of the question.

[clutch]

Envy at this end. 1000 ft from telco office and no DSL. Can get ISDN but all local calls with originate where calls to everyone I know won't be local. Cable company brought cable out here 13 years ago. Analog. Upgrade schedual keeps slipping. Direct TV is pricy and I dish has trouble seeing out of the forrest.

Some day.....

Wes

"Lawrence L'Hote" wrote:

[Tom Watson]

Ya know, Lawrence, I posted my own epiphany regarding broadband service on the Wreck a few weeks ago. Since then I've been monitoring the outages and the high use times slow downs in the service and I've decided to go back to my 56K connection.

I love it when it works but it doesn't work according to spec often enough for me to stick with it.

I was on Comcast and I guess what I think about them is this:

Who has been the most reliable over the last year; your cable company, or your phone company?

The answer for me is. my phone company.

I can't get DSL either. In my case it is because we have fiber in the street and DSL is not currently compatible with fiber.

I'll wait for the technology to catch up with the technology.

Former Broadband Cable Subscriber.

Regards, Tom Thomas J. Watson - Cabinetmaker Gulph Mills, Pennsylvania

[Saudade]

I've been on cable for several years as well and have great performance (for the most part). My d/l speeds are much faster than anyone I know on DSL for the same price. I just did a speed test from

and have clipped the results and posted in ABPW. At 4pm on a Friday it's over 3400 kbps!!

[B a r r y B u r k e J r .]

Think that's fast? I have an unrestricted DSL test line that clocks out in the 7 MB/s range at the side of my house. The upstream side of the DSLAM is fed with a DS3 with only TWO subscribers, myself, and one other, using it outside of 8-5 M-F.

Did I mention the service is free?

Barry

[B a r r y B u r k e J r .]

Yes it is. That fiber dosen't feed directly to your home or business unless you buy an optical connection, which is currently way big bucks. The fiber feeds a "subscriber multiplexer" that then feeds the copper wire to your home. The DSL can easily be inserted into the line at the remote hut where your phone service is converted to copper.

What's really going on is your phone company hasn't yet installed a DSLAM device in the hut to provide DSL in your area. In fact, the DSLAM is often fed with fiber on the upstream side!

Barry

[BigJoe]

Hi Larry, No matter where you are or what you have...someone somewhere has it better than you. You can't win.

Anyway, congrats on moving up to cable.

I've had roadrunner for a couple of years now and loving it. However, my phone modem is nearby if needed. Regards. BigJoe

[Thomas Mitchell]

I'm guessing you work for the phone company, or you sell broadband??

I'd say someth> >

[Gnube]

Here in the UK they got RADSL, and 5 miles is fine, but no more!

Having said that, DSL of any flavour requires a supplier who really knows what they are doing - and to prove it mine doesn't! The service is great when it's running as it should but when it don't, it can seem worse than a dial up - those moments are getting less lately, but they happen and boy do you notice it once you're used to always on and mostly damn quick!

Of course it also reveals problems in other services you connect to which you previously thought were solid and reliable! Can't have it all you know! ;O)

First time I surfed with it, I damn near fell out of the chair as it arrived so quick it caught me out and I jumped back or flinched in total surprise! ;O) (boy did I feel foolish, but the grin lasted a fair few weeks!)

Take Care, Gnube {too thick for linux}

[Gnube]

That's hot, but in theory you could max it out and get about one more MB out of it, as top end could be 8Mb or so (being very rough here and ignoring overheads and suchlike etc.!) Be worth a tinker in your situation -

& board for latter one, just ask in the tech areas) I bet someone would help with tweaking for that, just for the sheer hell of knowing how it went!)

Sure makes me a tad envious, as I got the half meg service and don't think I'll be able to get 1Mb due to distance from exchange and poor local copper & and incompetent local/national suppliers/ISP. I'm happy enough with it I guess, but yours must be a magnificent thing to behold when it's in full flight! ;O)

Take Care, Gnube {too thick for linux}

[Lawrence L'Hote]

The best I've been able to check is around 2000 kbps but right now(7:30 pm) it's around 1500 kbps. FWIW I didn't expect my original post to generate so much 'yours-is-ok-but-mine-is-better/faster' thread.

Larry

[Leon]

FWIW I didn't expect my original post to generate so

Awhhh your kidding right... There is always one some one that has something better.... Mine has a 6 hp router..

[Lawrence L'Hote]

curios, the msn.com/internet gives a 'reading' considerably lower than the one at

kbps vs. 2020 kbps

Larry

[Gnube]

Sorry, brain fart, that's 5.5 Kilometres not miles - still not quite got that metric down pat! ;O)

Take Care, Gnube {too thick for linux}

[Robert Bonomi]

5.5km very close to 18,000 ft which is the limit for most DSL in the U.S., w/o a 'repeater' -- which can extend the reach to circa 25,000 ft.

[TexasFireGuy]

My cable modem slows down from time to time, but the cable company has plenty of bandwidth in reserve and frees some up to get things back up to speed in these situations.

[todd]

That's interesting seeing as a DS3 tops out at 43Mbps/8=5.4MB/s.

todd

[McQualude]

C Wood spaketh...

I guess it depends on where you live. I've had both and I've found cable to reliable, consistant and much faster than DSL. Again, it depends on where you live, but I don't know anyone who has dropped cable for DSL in this area, but many have gone the other way.

Here would be my list Roadrunner vs. Earthlink

1. Cable is faster
2. Cable is more reliable
3. Cable is consistant in speed, DSL was up and down
4. Cable uploads faster
5. Both were good about not dropping packets
6. Cable is always on, DSL wasn't
7. Cable doesn't require additional software, DSL did and the software used a lot of memory
8. Customer support for cable exists (not great, but problems get fixed after a couple of calls, you have to get the right person)

Earthlink had no customer support to speak of when I dropped them (twoish years ago) if the problem was too complicated they would hang up or pass you to another person who would want to start from scratch again, they would make appointments for technicians to come out and troubleshoot the line and the techs wouldn't show up, then I would have to reschedule (I think the linetechs worked for Covad or Bellsouth) Earthlink sucked in every way, I would never go back unless I had no other option

[McQualude]

Saudade spaketh...

smokin' I came in at 1111.1 kbps

this is interesting, test your speed to different countries