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OT--broadband recommendations |
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| message from middletree on 23 Jul 2004 |
The boss has just informed me that I need to get a high-speed connection at
home, and the company is not going to help pay for it. I have been quite
happy with my $10 a month dial-up, but I guess that's going away.
I have found that the local phone company, SW Bell, or SBC, is offering a
DSL package for $27 a month. Download 380k to 1.5 meg/upload 128K. That
would be only a $17/month jump in my monthly budget, so I could hang with
that. But I thought I would put it to you guys to see if you know of
anything that's better that's still cheap.
Please note that I also don't have cable TV or a cell phone, so any
discounts for existing customers are not going to apply to me.
Both cable broadband and DSL are available in my area as far as I know. I
live in Arlington, which is between Dallas and Ft Worth, TX.
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| darrel replied to middletree on 23 Jul 2004 |
Did you slap them upside the head?
DSL: Tends to be a tad cheaper than cable. A tad slower. A tad cheaper.
Cable: A bit faster, a bit more expsneive.
Cons of DSL: you have to deal with the telco. ESPECIALLY if you use them as
your ISP. If you go with DSL, I'd find a good local ISP and get it through
them, as then they can help when you have problems with the TelCo.
Cons of Cable: You're on a network most likely owned by a gigantic media
corp. Just makes me more paranoid. ;o)
Though if you get Cable, I think you get at least the basic channels with
it.
The only other options would be wireless, which a few areas are trying, or
sattelite, which, for now, is more expensive and slower than DSL/Cable.
I still can't believe your company isn't helping foot the bill, though.
-Darrel
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| Gary White replied to darrel on 23 Jul 2004 |
Another is that you must be within 14,000 feet? of a phone company
switching station. It used to be 16,500 feet and I was near that. I had
TERRIBLE luck with it. It lost connectivity ALL the time.
Gary
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| middletree replied to darrel on 23 Jul 2004 |
I don't get this. Isn't the DSL provider also your ISP?
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| Durwood Edwards replied to middletree on 23 Jul 2004 |
Another consideration is that DSL gets less efficient the farther you are
from a digital switching station. If you are over 8 miles out, it is
probably not worth the added expense.
I live out in the forest and had to settle for ISDN (at $43.00.month)
becasue the cable ended 1.5 miles from my house and I am way far away from
any switch for DSL.
Durwood
"middletree" <middletree@htomail.com> wrote in message
news:cdrb54$im2$1@forums.macromedia.com...
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| Murray *TMM* replied to Durwood Edwards on 23 Jul 2004 |
By the same token, cable gets less efficient the more people in your node
use it. If you are in a neighborhood where everyone is on when you are, and
they are all downloading pirated movies, your bandwidth will get throttled.
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| cmbergin replied to Murray *TMM* on 23 Jul 2004 |
I use SBC's DSL service. It's quite good. With SBC, Yahoo! is actually your
ISP, so that may help alleviate the problems suggested by some of the other
answers. I'm not sure since I've never dealt with another telco. :)
Time Warner (our local cable monopoly) sells its cable modem service
separately from its cable television service. There are packages to get both
at a discount, but only if you get the more expensive digital cable. Even
then, it's not much of a discount (some packages don't have any discount).
It's *much* more expensive than our DSL, and the speed difference just isn't
important to us. Plus, as I understand it, DSL speed is much more consistent
and stable than cable speed because DSL speed does not depend as much on the
number of people using it.
Again, no comparisons with other cable providers since I don't have any.
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| darrel replied to middletree on 23 Jul 2004 |
Sorry, didn't give you an explicit answer there.
No, your DSL provider is technically your phone company. You CAN use other
DSL providers, but they're still using the Telco's network (this is a
remnant of the Bell anti-trust breakup...the Telcos, while they control the
network, have to let other DSL providers use the same network to compete).
The ISP can be any ISP that supports your DSL provider. My advice is simply
to not let your Telco be BOTH your DSL provider AND your ISP. Spread the
pain of dealing with Telcos over to a 3rd party if you can. ;o)
-Darrel
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| darrel replied to middletree on 23 Jul 2004 |
A DSL line to your house (involves a DSL-approved telephone cable, a card
installed at the Telco switching station, and modem/router) and an ISP.
The ISP can be your Telco. That's the default 'package' they sell you and
tends to be a bit cheaper. OR, you can go with any ISP in town that offers
DSL and use them as your ISP.
The problem with your Telco being your ISP is that they are idiots. It's
hard enough dealing with the Telco over phone problems, but when you add in
internet issues, well, it's torture.
So, if you use a local ISP, they can act as an intermediary. They typically
have connections in to the Telco's DSL support chain that can get problems
resolved faster.
Oh...one other typical difference between Cable and DSL. With Cable, you
typically get a dynamic IP address and with DSL, you can usually get a
Static IP address. Might make a difference depending on what, exactly, you
need to connect to at work.
Since I have my own web server in my basement, I went with DSL because a)
it's a static IP which makes it much easier to point a domain name at and b)
my local ISP is geek-friendly, so they helped set up all of your router
settings.
DSL is also usually not bandwidth throttled. Ie, with my DSL, I can
up/download as much as I want. With Cable, then tend to watch those that are
using a lot of bandwidth, since you pretty much 'share' the bandwidth with
your neighbors. If they see you have a lot of bandwidth usage, they may tag
you as a P2Per or hosting web sites from your house, which they don't want
you doing.
-Darrel
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| Joe Makowiec replied to middletree on 23 Jul 2004 |
Nobody suggested you visit http://broadbandreports.com/ although they
should have. They have reviews of local providers, and I'm sure your
area would be covered.
My experience is with a cable provider (Time Warner/RoadRunner in
eastern New York). They've generally been pretty good; and when I've
needed service, I can usually convince the first levels that I know
whereof I speak and that I have a problem which needs fixing.
Bandwidth is OK, though it does bog down a bit in the afternoon and
early evening. I was just discussing this with a friend who lives near
me, but probably on a different subnet. He said that he notices a
distinct slowdown some times of the day. (He lives near a major
technological institution http://www.rpi.edu/ so that could affect it a
bit.)
Most of the time I get on the order of 2 gigabits down and about a half
a gigabit up.
One thing with the cable shared/DSL one line/one user claim - it's
true, all the way back to the switch. Then you start sharing
bandwidth.
My personal experience with DSL is that it's harder to get up and
running - maybe the company I hit was just dumber than others. But it
seems to hum right along for the people I set it up for. I couldn't
tell you the provider right now.
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