help with dsl

man, i hate my modem, esp since i was on a T1 before. is freedsl.com worth it? is anyone using it? anyone know cheaper, better ways to get faster connections? (already done netsetter) thanx in advance __________________ Find out if you have cable in your area too. From what I've heard DSL is a great for a steady connection and reasonably fast downloads. However, if you're the type who also need highspeed uploads you may want to go with cable. The upload on DSL is rather stunted. Also, I've experienced a bandwidth cap on DSL, however, I have no documentation to back this up. My bro has a DSL connection and I've seen it top off at 120k/s. This may just be the service, I don't know. I have cable and I've seen downloads of over 440k/s. I've even heard rumours of cable achieving over 600 (but I doubt it since I thought this was physical impossible for cable). Either way, if you're strictly into downloads go with DSL. Its a much more stable connection. Cheers __________________ 30megabits/sec is the "theoretical" max of cable, though it's more often quoted at 10megabits/sec. __________________ Man...you guys are lucky you can just GET one of those services. Our phone company (US West) is so pathetic about adding more DSL. AT&T Cable Services is also stalling. You're lucky you can get a 56K connection to the net because our phone company has the lines in our whole neighborhood so screwed up that nobody in at least 4 miles away from me can get over a 28.8 connection. Most don't even get that! And the phone company blames it on the ISP! We've tried lots of ISPs and no luck! Just consider yourself lucky you can get over 28.8 (although we are supposed to be able to get cable internet in 3-4 weeks...that's what they said in January....) ------------------ dcsonic2k dcsonic2k@hotmail.com __________________ They said 3-4 weeks. They meant 3-4 years! __________________ Paul - you have it backwards - cable modems are the ones with no upload speed. dsl modems have the same speed all the time, no matter what, but the cable modems share their bandwith with the rest of the neighboorhood, so cable modem speed will vary. but dsl upload speed is always faster than cable modem upload speed. cable has like, no upload speed at all - i think its as fast as a 56K modem (correct me if im wrong with that one)... __________________ sbp, i'm not gonna go into it again, but you know the post. they give it to the people who cant afford it first. BTW, i live about 3 mins from dcsonic2k. Last month when i went to the AT&T @Home website, and plugged in my address, it said that cable was available, and had me put in my dad's CC#. They said they would call within 3 days to schedule an installation time. About a week later, we had still not gotten a call, so we decided to call them. They said that it was a "website error" and that cable modem was not yet ready. But I know it can't be far off, because everyday, there are road crews and cable crews laying cable under the street! __________________ I pretty much went through the same deal here. My cable operator's web site said last year it would be ready by last Christmas. By Christmas it then said 2nd quarter this year. And now it becomes "winter 2000." **** them! Oh by the way, I plugged in my address into their server, and of course it says not available. But then, I plug in an address like 50 houses away from mine (street name is the same), and it says it's available!!! __________________ through my cable modem experience, my suggestion is to go with DSL. Living in so. cali...the speed varies by the hour as more and more people are webhogging through the shared bandwidth. This has a big affect on internet speed. DSL guarantees a certain speed which it will never go below. __________________ OK guys, this is comming from a DSL user. Cable is shared but it has high capacity, so if no ones on you can upload and download like crazy. Speed depends on how many people are using the same line. DSL is a dedicated line: ADSL has high download but slow upload SDSL has the same rate for both up and down and there are many more types. Speed depends on package you choose. As to which one is better, that depends on where you live, where i live the cable lines are very congested so it makes no sense to go with it, DSL is a much better choice, in some places, especially canada Cable is not as congested and is a much better choice. __________________ Crunch: Well, I'm mostly writing from my own personal experience with cable. Once again, all of this may vary with the provider. The fastest download I've ever had was 440k/s. I was downloading a movie from broadcast.com. The fastest I've seen from multiple files was with Go!Zilla and I achieved 395k/s. Whenever I upload, the fastest upload speed I've attained uploading to my bro's DSL was 35k/s. However when uploading to a friend who lives 2km away and who also has Rogers@Home I usually get 120k/s on a single file. Once again, all this may vary by service, modem, etc. I also optimized my cable by going to www.speedguide.net Believe it or not, a couple registry tweaks improves the service on cable connections considerably. As a final note, my brother is now switching to cable (since its now available in his area) from DSL. His reason is because he prefers the better overall bandwidth. Having used both (he had moved and his old area had cable but the new place he has did not) he feels that cable is the superior of the two. However, be warned, I've experienced MANY headaches with my service. At one point I lost connection for over 3wks. TechSupport was useless. To put it bluntly, a wet log would have fixed the problem sooner. I was tempted on switching to DSL myself until they get their sh!t together. My advice is: Ask people in your area who have cable or DSL and find out what problems they've had, test the d/l and u/l speed, etc. Then decide. For all I know Rogers@Home may be worse than Cali-Cable (or whatever) but better than RoadRunner. On the other hand, Texas DSL might be better than all of them but Vancouver DSL might be only a slight improvement over a 56.6. I'm pretty sure it varies with the provider and not just the connection type and modem. Cheers __________________ Well, my cable internet access provider, AT&T Cable "Services" (which I can not get, read above) limits uploads to 128KBps which helps prevent people from running servers over their cable internet connections. They will also turn off your cable internet if they find your running a server of any type (even something like a tiny little personal web page that gets 5 hits a month will tick 'em off) ------------------ dcsonic2k dcsonic2k@hotmail.com __________________ hmm... I have Cable. I have Roadrunner in Orange County, California. I Always get 45K/sec upload. With the exception of the occasional person in Northern Canada, or UK. Some people in Canada I have uploaded to @ 45K/sec, others aren't so lucky. The best I have seen for download on a single file is ~240K/sec. I can get better adding up total speed of multiple files @ once. Right now I have been up 8 days, 12 hours and I have downloaded 5.02GB, and uploaded 1.9GB. I am happy with the $40 service I am paying for, especially after having 56k with such an awful ISP. Ok... that's my 2 cents.... errr.. $40. ------------------ §=-Sp34dFr34k-=§ __________________ I don't know if there's any truth to this at all but I think I remember hearing way back a year ago or so that Canadian's could get VERY fast DSL for VERY cheap. Anybody know if this is true or not??? I'd just kinda like something to yell at my phone company for ------------------ dcsonic2k dcsonic2k@hotmail.com __________________ My dad lives in Korea, and some apartments (read condos) give away free ADSL or Cable modem acces as a way to fill the complexes. They're having a hard time keeping them full, so everyone gets DSL for free. Even the apartments in Silicon Valley don't have free Internet acess, let alone at those speeds. __________________ For people in socal, is anyone else having trouble wit pacbell's Dsl? My friends can't seem to get them to install lines in their neighborhoods. __________________ Ok with all the different speeds everyone failed tomention what kind of PC they have , specs and all. Speed also depends on your specs. e.g. you have a crappy pc, you get a crappy download rate. You have a new providor, you get a crappy DL rate. As the service grows speed and holes in the lines will increase overall performance. I have a crappy Pentium 90 overclocked to 200Mhz and i can DL up to 150 kps, UL to 120 kbs. My friend has Athlon 550 with 256 megs ram and all the good stuff. Also dif Nic card (not the crappy one they install) and got up to 700 kps on one site (of course it varies from site to site) but it hit that high. UL was about 200 kbs, to one of his web site servers. UL to me was only 75 kbs. So it will vary. But the BOTTOM LINE IS it is Superior compaired to regular 56k modem(which never gives you a true 56k )FCC regulations will never let it go any higher than 33(correct me if i am wrong, but i doubt it). Now since DSL is a new service after the kinks are removed it will be better than cable. But not for long there will always be a newer service much faster. You will have to wait each time to get theee best rates. I have Road Runner The service will be up for about 2 years now, i've been on it for about a year and i can't complaine. For those who question my pc, yeah it sucks getting AMD Atlon 700mhz next month __________________ Uranus: actually the speed you get really doesn't really depend on your computer, as proof take the server of www.cdrom.com, its actually a pentium pro 200 (not very fast) and yet it transfers gigabytes of data per day. as more proof, my firewall is my old cyrix 6x86, all data goes through that but i still download at my full capacity dcsonic2k: I dont know about DSL but i know that you can get cable for very cheap in canada cause the government also pays for it, its also very fast (i've dl from people there) __________________ actually, no one's touched on my other question. anyone using any FREE dsl service? if yes, please let me know how it works, and how well it works. otherwise, still talk amongst yourselves. __________________ Don't you just love how every forum tends to stray off topic. __________________ so how was your day today speedracer120?? __________________ Great, just great! __________________ doh! __________________ Well everybody, I just got lucky.. I just called AT&T Cable Internet Services (our local probider) and they said that I should be able to get cable internet in about a week or two. This is great news, considering my 56K modem can only do 26.4 because of our phone company and our phone company doesn't offer DSL in our area yet either... __________________ I've been with Comcast @home for about 6 months. They had a few problems when they first started out here...but now I wouldn't go back. I was on a ADSL with Bell South and this cable is so much better. Either one still kicks my 56k modem. I was lucky to get a 28.8 speed. Nice to get a little speed. __________________ depending on where you live i would try and go with cable. dsl you have to pay for your speed and if you pay for the basic service its usualy like 48kbps down and like 16 up . they tell you in bits not bytes so it sounds like its faster but its really not. __________________ hmm guess i have to say this again. before you decide on cable or dsl go and ask someone with cable how fast they can download, someone near you. DO NOT GET CABLE CAUSE SOMEONE ON THE BOARD TELLS YOU ITS FASTER OR BETTER, it all depends on the conditions of where you live. where i live cable is slow as dial-up so i went with dsl __________________ Well, if you want to try the services for yourself, all you have to do is get them to come and install it (free in my area) and if it sucks, you can call them and tell them it sucks and request to cancel. It's quite simple really.