Thinking of going DSLFollow

It won't be faster than cable, but still fast enough for most things.

You'll have to get at least the Pro version to get similar bandwidth to your cable.

For basic web surfing and game playing, the basic package would work fine. Anything more bandwidth entensive, the Basic package might be a little lacking.

Edited, Thu Nov 3 12:00:29 2005 by Frakkor

I play EQ on dialup.

There will be no issues playing EQ with DSL, patching might take slightly longer, but gameplay should not be effected. I used it when I lived in GR, worked great.

I love my Time Warner Cable broadband. Wouldn't swap it for any DSL I've ever had.

No experience with SBC here, but I think everything really rides on the serice provider for your decision. Research them.

If you call them, ask what the distance is for your line to the CO. If it's less than 15,000 feet you should be ok, anything more and I'd say stick to cable. DSL works great as long as you have a good line and are fairly close to a CO, if you've got old wire or are pushing the limits you may end up with more problems than it's worth.

I just spoke with them and they said the CO will not be an issue in my are because they have some sort of remote terminal that enhances the signal in my area.

Cable in my area is crap. Always down and the upload speeds are capped. I have DSL from a local provider and you could not pay me to switch to cable, as I get excellent upload and download speeds. I have tried it and I do not like it at all.

I guess it all depends on your area.

TWC has excellent service in my area. I test my bandwidth from time to time using one of the free services out there (whatever I google up when the urge hits me) and I stay between 5-6 m. The latency is low and I have only had two short outages in the past 24 months. I r teh satisfied customer.

Internet truly depends on the area.

When I was living in a different city I was running cable and it was atrocious and one of the girl room mates had DSL and it was phenomenal.

I moved and now the reverse is true, the cable is much more reliable etc than DSL. In fact after my sister saw me clicking around on Cable compared to her DSL she went and switched over.

ive not used SBC, but as one of the first tier 2 techs and installers for Bellsouth in the Central FL area i can give you some basic info.

1. aDSL under 16,000 feet is great.
2. aDSL from 16,001 - 24,000 is questionable.

the distance is from the nearest CO (central office) of direct copper. the line will have to be cleaned and tested before you can get the aDSL connected. This can take from 48hrs - 2 months or more.

Also if you are eligible for SBC DSL, then you are also eligible for DSL from your local telco (phone company) as they will be the owners of the copper any ways. you will be at the mercy of the local telcos backbone for uptimes, consistancy, and stability. it is their copper and their network after all.

all 2nd party DSL providers (this includes earthlink, SBC or any local ISPs that also offer DSL) rent space from the local Telcos COs to colocate their hardware. In other words they are basically reselling the telcos DSL over their copper.

sometimes this is good, others this is bad. in my case it is good as i have a very reputable ISP named MPINET.com and i am in sprint territory. so my copper is sprint, but my first point of contact and the company i pay is my ISP. this alows me to get a busienss DSL class line for about $50 less then i would if i went directly through Sprint, plus i own my equipment vs leasing it from Sprint.

other times this is bad like in the case with Earthlink. long story short Earthlink does not care about its customers no matter what their adds say.

now to compaire xDSL to cable:

1. xDSL has the potential to be more secure nativily then Cable.

2. xDSL is currently slower in most areas then Cable on the downstream.

3. xDSL can be as fast as most baseic cable connections in the upstream. this only affects you if you plan on doing a lot of torrents, or host a web page, ftp site, etc. otherwise this will have zero affect on surfing or gaming.

4. price depends on area, speed, services bundled.

IMHO for most home users Cable is today the way to go. DSL can be as much as 1/5 the speed of Cable with downloads and is comperable in upload speeds. the price when you compaire the price of a 2nd phone line for 56k and the ease of using phone and xDSL at the same time over the same bit of copper, compaired to digital cable TV package along with cable connection for internet will be about the same unless you go on a real low end xDSL line.

if you go on a low end (slow speed) xDSL line after coming from a cable line you will kick yourself ever day.

so the bottom line boils down to how much do you hate your current ISP (comcast, i have heard nothing but bad things about them) and have you called your local telcos to compair with SBC and do you have a contract with any of them.

contracts = do not do.

just that simple.

Wow, thanks Singdall!

If you are having massive problems with Comcast, why not try SBC for a month, they'll generally give you a trial period where you can cancel with no penalties.

See which one is better (based on service and price) and go from there.

Either way, I'm still jealous.