My phone company SBC, offered to install a DSL internet connection into my home for $14.99 a month for 1 year. We currently have a cable connection by our cable tv provider, Comcast. Comcast charges us about $30 per month. Obviously, DSL is cheaper. Could anyone tell me the difference between the two? What would I loose by switching from Cable to DSL? Do you feel it's a wise choice to switch?
Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!

This link (http://www.high-speed-internet-access-guide.com/dsl-vs-cable.html) sums things up pretty well.

Currently I have cable internet because when I originally moved into the house DSL wasn't available in my area. Now it is available but I keep turning down the cheaper DSL offers because:

1. Even though it's now available in my area I'm still far enough away from the DSL facilities that my cable connection is faster.
2. I've had many friends have issues with their phones (noise, interference, etc.) after having DSL installed. A filter takes care of this but it seems that the technicians either aren't installing it or aren't doing it right.
3. In order for DSL to match the speed of cable (if available) you have to pay more than the basic quoted price and is usually more expensive than cable.

I'm getting ready to switch from SBC/Yahoo DSL over to comcast cable. I've had the DSL for the last 5 years and while it's better than dial up by far to get decent speed I had to "upgrade' (read pay MORE) to the 39.95 a month plan to have 'high speed' DSL....so check things out before you switch.

I think cable is faster and more reliable
my.02

BQ2

This link (http://www.high-speed-internet-access-guide.com/dsl-vs-cable.html) sums things up pretty well.

Currently I have cable internet because when I originally moved into the house DSL wasn't available in my area. Now it is available but I keep turning down the cheaper DSL offers because:

1. Even though it's now available in my area I'm still far enough away from the DSL facilities that my cable connection is faster.
2. I've had many friends have issues with their phones (noise, interference, etc.) after having DSL installed. A filter takes care of this but it seems that the technicians either aren't installing it or aren't doing it right.
3. In order for DSL to match the speed of cable (if available) you have to pay more than the basic quoted price and is usually more expensive than cable.Bill, you rock, thanks so much! I think I'll stick with cable until I find out how close the DSL ISP is to my home. I'll also ask my new neighbors what they use. Thanks again!

About 2 weeks ago installed SBC/Yahoo DSL in a friend's house under the $14.95 deal. He gets clocked speeds of 1.5 to 1.6mbps. Plenty fast for just about anything. Don't know if that's the speed he's supposed to be getting, but that's what they gave him.

Verizon DSL is converting and doubling almost all their basic subscribers up from average 1.5mbps to 3.0mbps at no additional charge. But the roll-out for the upgrade will take some time.

My friend in New Jersey has already been upgraded and is clocking the higher 3.0mbps speeds with Verizon. But at our house where we also have Verizon DSL, we're still 1.5 and waiting for the upgrade to hit our area someday.

I had cable before Verizon DSL, and while it was fast I found it spotty in consistent speed stream. It would like blaze for a few seconds and then stall and then pick up again. Everyone in the neighborhood (and in the city from what I could tell) reported the same. So I moved over to DSL and get great speed and constant streams now.

We've never encountered any problem with the DSL filters, and we have phones and fax machines on it. Doesn't effect dial-up internet in my tests, and our TiVo dials out just fine. Also our home alarm system uses the phone line and no problem there with the filter in.

One nice thing about SBC/Yahoo DSL, is that for only $1.99 more per month, you can add-on a Limited SBC FreedomLink subscription. This allows you to use Wi-Fi Hotspots at Barnes and Nobels, UPS Stores, and at many McDonalds nationwide. A nice on-the-road emergency back-up for high-speed internet if you need it, and certainly beats a $29.95 subscription to T-Mobile for on-the-road Wi-Fi.

I think a lot of it depends on the company you are dealing with and location.

We had Roadrunner cable internet when we lived in San Diego. It was the **best**. I think it was down 2-3 times in the year + that we had it, for $100 a month we had a business account that even enabled us to host a fairly decent size website out of our home.

When I sold the website (that had been hosted in my home) the company had Pac Bell (now SBC) DSL. In that particular area (Carlsbad) and at that point in time (1999-2000) the service was HORRIBLE. the website was frequently down and most days at the office we had some interruption of our connection ranging from 10 or 15 minutes to entire days.

I have ExtremeDSL now and live fairly close to the Verizon connection (I can't for the life of me remember what they call it, a sub-station maybe?) Since leaving Verison DSL for Extremem DSL I have been very happy. The people who use cable in my area seem to either love it or hate it but our local cable company is Charter.

My parents have had SBC DSL for several years and are QUITE happy with the service. They are moderate Internet users, my dad has a few geneaology hobby sites that he works on and they get a lot of email.

I'd secone that thought that you want to check with your neighbors who have SBC and see how their service is. When we lived in the Riverside area we lived so far from the phone relay (or substation whatever they call it) that even our DIAL UP was slow (like 18.8 as I recall) and we weren't eligible for DSL service. :( the location of their equipment makes a BIG difference!

I've had DSL going on 4 years now and its only gone down once...for 15 minutes.

I might be near a DSL tower though so that may be why. The only complaint I have is the download speed is really slow.

This is great information - thank you everyone!!!!!!! :) :) :) :) :)

The only complaint I have is the download speed is really slow.
Since 99.99% of internet activity is downloading I'd say that's a pretty major concern. Unless of course you meant upload. ;)

Since 99.99% of internet activity is downloading I'd say that's a pretty major concern. Unless of course you meant upload. ;)

lol No, but anytime I download ANYTHING on different programs, for different things I'm waiting a long time. Not small stupid things like a few MB but big files...*coughs* not stolen *coughs*

Like my patches for my games mainly. Isn't there somewhere on your system that you can go to adjust the max amount of memory to accept for download?

Just updating this old thread.

Last year (above) I posted about Verizon DSL:

My friend in New Jersey has already been upgraded and is clocking the higher 3.0mbps speeds with Verizon. But at our house where we also have Verizon DSL, we're still 1.5 and waiting for the upgrade to hit our area someday.

Well today...my someday has come! We've officially been upgraded to the 3.0mbps bandwidth!!! And I'm clocking just that! Yipee! Blazing downloads much faster than before. I'm a happy camper! :)

Also above I wrote about SBC/Yahoo DSL:

One nice thing about SBC/Yahoo DSL, is that for only $1.99 more per month, you can add-on a Limited SBC FreedomLink subscription. This allows you to use Wi-Fi Hotspots at Barnes and Nobels, UPS Stores, and at many McDonalds nationwide. A nice on-the-road emergency back-up for high-speed internet if you need it, and certainly beats a $29.95 subscription to T-Mobile for on-the-road Wi-Fi.

Since that post SBC has merged with AT&T and so now that same $1.99 per month is now good at all AT&T wireless locations too! Another Yipee! Places like Denver International Airport and a whole slew of other AT&T chain hotspots have been added all for that one low price. And since we have an office that has SBC/ATT DSL, I have access to all those new WiFi Hotspots, in addition to the old ones. :)

Been a good day for us, bandwidth and access wise. :)

<<(I can't for the life of me remember what they call it, a sub-station maybe?)>> Do you mean the DSLAM?

Bell Sympatico in Canada only offers connections up to5mbps as part of their normal high speed connection, happily i'm one of those customers. (Bell Canada switched to fibre optic eons ago)

For those in the US, using Verizon Online DSL you may want to inquire if you can get FIOS:

# 5 Mbit/s Downstream/2 Mbit/s Up Price: $34.95 or $39.95/month
# 15 Mbit/s Downstream/2Mbit/s Up Price: $44.95 or $49.95/month
# 30 Mbit/s Downstream/5 Mbit/s Up Price: $179.95 or $199.95/month

The one caveat is that when you call tech support you'll have to call a special FIOS trained tech support number, if you call normal DSL after your wait you will be transfered to FIOS trained tech support agents.

As well with any installation you'd have to wait for the install and may have to use dial-up for a time during the switch. It's up to you if it's worth the hassle.

Even within the same city depending on where you are on the local loop for DSL will affect your speed. With cable it depends how many people are on your node and how much they use the internet. What my experience is may be different then yours.

Some Cable companies are operating in the 10mbps range.

Im probably a little late in this response, but perhaps it will benefit others.

Call up your cable company. Tell them that you have a promotional DSL offer and ask them what promotional offers they are offering to match it. Most of the time, they'll offer you 6 months, or maybe a year at a reduced rate. Ive seen $19.99 / 6 months, and $29.99 / year. Much less than the standard $45 ish rate that is generally out there.

Your basically getting them to pricematch...and then you dont have the hassle of dealing with switching internet service.

Works for me!

We have DSL at the office.

I still use dial-up at home. A 56k modem on my Linux box, and a 14.4k modem on my Mac.