whats the diff. between.....

Question

OK so whats the difference between dsl and cable connection to the internet? I have dial up now and the phone company is making subscribers switch over to iether cable or something called E-data. a lady at my phone company says E-data is also through cable but if its the same connection as cable, why the diff. name, so i was wondering is dsl and cable connection the same or is there differences somehow? im soooo confused?? any advice would be great!

sweetrose

Lildrew65 · Answer

Cable goes through your cable tv line, and dsl goes through your phone line. Cable is better, beacuse you won't have to worry about have your phone line through your house updated, or have to put filters if you want to use your phone to make a call.

Goonboy · Answer

Cables's better, in my opinion, and doesn't require the use of phone lines. Easier to install/maintain, too. See the link below for all sorts of info on high speed connections, but if you have a choice between one or the other, I'd go with the cable.

http://www.dslreports.com/

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sweetrose3 · Answer

NT-no text

vetriguy · Answer

Hi Sweetrose.

I'm no expert on this since I'm on a dial-up ISP that is fine for my purposes, but there is one thing you might want to factor into your decision. In my experience, cable service goes down far more often than telephone does. Friends, who love their high-speed cable connections, are always complaining about outages.

Also, are you sure your phone company is requiring you to change service? I mean, a dial-up works through a normal phone line, and I haven't heard any talk of eliminating that standard service. It sounds to me like you may have spoken to an over-zealous company salesperson.

Richard

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Message Edited on 11/20/01 10:51PM by vetriguy

Majestic · Answer

DSL and Cable each have their own advantages and disadvantages. I looked at cable and although it offers a better peak speed, it is also a shared bandwidth with everyone else in your neighborhood. Which means in my neck of the woods during prime time or when the kids get out of school and start downloading MP3s, it bogs right down. DSL on the otherhand is a dedicated connection between you and the phone company which mean a consistent speed. The other thing is with cable I didn't like the idea of having cable TV service forced upon me. You couldn't get basic cable with the Internet, but had to subscribe to the more expensive "standard" service. I finally went with DSL and enjoy it very much. A side benefit is I can access the Internet either by DSL or through the company's regular dial-up service. So no matter where I am I can access the net.

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son to Bill Gate$.

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be trying to sell you the next version.

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Funky_Chicken · Answer

The decision needs to be based on lots of variables. Majestic covered most of them. A key factor is do you even have a choice? You may not be close enough to the telephone companies C.O. to get DSL.or your cable TV company may not offer Cable Internet access.

In my case, I would have been required to upgrade my cable to a more expensive digital package.

Of course, there is also the question, which utility do you dislike the most, Cable TV or Phone? ;-)

No electrons were harmed in the posting of this message.

FC

Message Edited on 11/21/01 08:06AM by Funky_Chicken

nilo · Answer

Can anyone honestly say they dislike the phone company more than the cable company? That's the best thing about DSL (though it's not offered here yet): It doesn't come from the cable company.

Paul_Cussen · Answer

my two cents,

The biggest factor for me was the "Shared Bandwidth", as stated by majestic. The last thing anyone wants when paying $50 (49.95) a month is to "share" the available bandwidth.

(the fact that 'AT&T' (ggrrrrr) is the cable company also contributed).

Paul.

sweetrose3 · Answer

Hi veriguy

Our Phone Company here now sells cable, so its the phone,cable and internet provider now, All i know is they are not selling Dial up connections anymore (MY uncle went there to get on line and he had to go cable,they would not sell him dial up and siad they no longer are) and from his understanding and when i called them, A lady siad eventually everyone subscribed to their internet will have to go with cable, iether theres for a price for cable and a price for internet or if you have cable through the originall cable company a few miles away then our phone company charges 5 bucks more. Its crazy, Like someone siad in one of these post I don't like having cable forced on me. Anyway, there reasoning is this> The phone lines are just tooooo busy!! i say they should of thought of that before they got the internet,or however you would say that.

thanks.
sweetrose

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whats the diff. between.....

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