Cable or DSL...Which is BEST???
TV ClubHouse: Archives: Cable or DSL...Which is BEST???
Oregonfire | Friday, October 11, 2002 - 11:08 am     Is $50 a month the average for cable/DSL service? I'm holding out for $40 or less. Qwest has DSL for $40 a month including MSN ISP and free installation. It's $20 a month if you have a separate ISP. Anybody go through Qwest for DSL? I'm mad at AT&T Broadband for ignoring their existing customers with the basic cable deal and don't want to pay $50 a month. |
Zachsmom | Friday, October 11, 2002 - 11:09 am     Oregon..I pay 29.95 for cable service.. |
Max | Friday, October 11, 2002 - 12:45 pm     Oregonfire, I think it really depends on where you live. I'm in Hillsboro and I pay (well my company actually pays) $49.95 for AT&T Cable modem service. In California, it's much cheaper, probably because of the larger volume of customers. My Verizon DSL was the same price for slower service. That included using them as the ISP. |
Kstme | Friday, October 11, 2002 - 12:49 pm     Our internet cable runs $34.95 a month. With ALL the other stuff on our cable bill, we're paying $137 a month...digital, reg. cable and internet cable. Three tv's hooked up and the puter. (ACK...I'm choking!) |
Oregonfire | Friday, October 11, 2002 - 01:14 pm     Hmm, thanks for the responses. The cheapest I've seen is $40 a month, and apparently Qwest's service is not good at all. Guess I'll have to put up with 56k a bit longer. |
Zachsmom | Friday, October 11, 2002 - 01:21 pm     Oregon..is that with or without the modem rental? If you have your own cable modem (costs about 100-200 dollars) you may save 10-15 dollars a month.. |
Misslibra | Friday, October 11, 2002 - 07:14 pm     I never had DSL, but I absolutely love my cable, don't know how I lived without before. It's worth the money to me. |
Riviere | Saturday, October 12, 2002 - 06:14 am     Cable here.. Hubby is a tech and I'm stingy! We pay $79 for several networked pc's to be online at same time 0 to 24 hours a day. DSL doesn't have the bandwidth in our area nor is it reliable plus would cost over $100 for what we have now using improved cable. DSL is already a flash in the pan connection tool where we live. What a huge difference from 2 years ago! |
Jagger | Saturday, October 12, 2002 - 10:04 am     I have had both, but I now have cable and would not go back to DSL, namely because of their customer service. I had QWest for my DSL, I got so upset with them I even cancelled my phone with them. It took me over 1 month to get the DSL hooked up and that was with calling everyday, sometimes several times a day, 3 months after I signed up they more than doubled the price. I cancelled the service and it took them over 6 months to clear up the bill, they continued to charge me for it along with late charges, etc etc. I finally told them where they could stick their DSL and phone service. I have had cable hook up for about 9 months, service has been great, I have lost service 3 times in 9 months, all 3 times was for less than one day, usally caused by the weather. I have had great help from their tech support when I first had it hooked up. Service advantage definitly goes to cable Price advantage also goes to cable Speed advantage is about the same, but I have heard that cable can bog down because of usage, which so far I have not experienced. |
Oregonfire | Saturday, October 12, 2002 - 10:13 am     That's about what I heard about Qwest, Jagger--that's too bad! Okay that idea's out. No, I don't have my own cable modem, Zachsmom. Well, I think on principle (and on principal ) I can't get the cable or the DSL right now. The income is just not there to justify the cost, and my 56k does get the job done. When I get my brand new career going, I will celebrate by gettin' myself a cable modem and service. |
Meggieprice | Thursday, October 17, 2002 - 04:41 pm     I had @home cable... until it went belly up! I want to mention RCN because it has been a great deal for us- we already had digital cable TV w/o any premium channels , phone service, and cable internet- RCN gives us digital cable TV with HBO, phone service with unlimited local and message units plus caller id call waiting etc. AND message center, and cable modem internet- all for one price- in our case $110. We paid that much for the cable modem and the tv cable before! I can call my best friend in the 408 area code and cients all over our service area (Mendocino to Big Sur) free. I simply searched for an awesome long distance deal and that is the only phone bill I see. Internet service seems fast enough to me, with no outages in the year we have had it. I highly recommend RCN. |
Meggieprice | Thursday, October 17, 2002 - 06:44 pm     And I tested my RCN cable at Draheids awesome site: "2002-10-17 21:42:22 EST: 1516 / 755 Your download speed : 1516663 bps, or 1516 kbps. A 185.1 KB/sec transfer rate. Your upload speed : 755762 bps, or 755 kbps. Seems like broadband .. above the 1mbit barrier!" |
Max | Friday, October 18, 2002 - 09:45 am     Well, Heck! Intertainer is shutting down. Intertainer shuts; CEO vows return Fri Oct 18, 3:13 AM ET By Chris Marlowe LOS ANGELES (The Hollywood Reporter) --- Intertainer, a pioneer in delivering on-demand entertainment over the Internet, said it will halt operations Wednesday while its antitrust lawsuit against the major studios plays out. In an open letter to the company's 147,000 subscribers, chairman and CEO Jonathan Taplin promised to return. He blamed the hiatus on the anti-competitive environment fostered by having too few companies controlling the entertainment business and suggested that concerned individuals write to the FCC (news - web sites) and the U.S. Department of Justice (news - web sites). (there's more - see the link) |
Draheid | Friday, October 18, 2002 - 10:08 am     Just for grins, here is my current stats as just tested: 2002-10-18 13:08:00 EST: 2018 / 333 Your download speed : 2018149 bps, or 2018 kbps. A 246.3 KB/sec transfer rate. Your upload speed : 333333 bps, or 333 kbps. Seems like broadband .. above the 1mbit barrier! IOW: Cable ROCKS! |
Tobor7 | Sunday, November 10, 2002 - 07:57 pm     I had both. Cable is much better. |
Lumbele | Monday, November 11, 2002 - 07:48 am     Question: we have 2 computers on DSL, paying for 1. Cable charges for 2 hookups. Is there something "techie" that we could get that would only require 1 hookup charge? |
Draheid | Monday, November 11, 2002 - 08:24 am     Lumbele: You could look into networking your two computers directly or through a 'Cable/DSL Router' from companies such as Linksys (direct link to their product) (about $80 retail in the US) to handle what you are asking for. Alternatively, you could link the two computers together and use Microsoft's 'Internet Connection Sharing', however, this isn't as versatile as having a router. Note: Both of these options are NOT supported by your provider without paying additional fees for having more than one computer using the connection. That doesn't mean you can't do it, just that they want to charge for the additional access. |
Zachsmom | Monday, November 11, 2002 - 08:26 am     Lumbele..I have 4 computers hooked up to my 1 (paid) connection to the cable company. I have a router & hub..really easy to do!!! All of them are operating on differnet OS's! |
Karuuna | Monday, November 11, 2002 - 09:09 am     Sigh.. I so wish I didn't live out in the middle of nowhere... nothing but dialup... |
Jed245 | Monday, November 11, 2002 - 09:40 am     lumbele a router/hub is a great way to go..There are ofcourse pros and cons to a router. One of which (pro) heheh :o) is the fact that a router is a hardware solution to a firewall. A router is basically a firwall except your computer doesn't use any resources to run it. A con comes into play under your IP do you have a dynamic IP ??? Or static IP? If it's Dynamic putting both PC's on the same connection will make computer A follow computer B on the net. for example if computer A goes to tvch then computer B will also go there (this is assuming that both pc's are on and have browsers up). However, if you have a static IP... you will need to call your provider and ask for an additional IP... Just tell them you like the option of changing it or using an X box gamming console. Most providers only charge about fifty cents for extra IP addresses. Jed245 :o) |
Zachsmom | Monday, November 11, 2002 - 09:52 am     Not necessarily Jed..I can have all 4 of my computers going and can be on different websites!! I don't have static.. have dynamic.. |
Draheid | Monday, November 11, 2002 - 09:54 am     Jed245: I'm sorry, but I believe what you stated above is incorrect. A router, irrespective of the type of IP address assigned, will NOT make one computer follow another. It doesn't matter if it's dynamic or static. Additionally, the router isn't so much of a firewall as a mask to the actual physical address of the computers connected. Since the internet sees the router's address. Unless you specifically configure the router to allow traffic through to one of your computers, there is little chance that someone on the internet could gain access to your computers behind the router. As to the cost in obtaining additional connections, most providers I've seen charge between $10-20 per additional computer connected even if they are assigned dynamic addresses. Even AOL Broadband has additional charges for multiple computer setups including the requirement that you purchase the router through them. However, an advantage to the AOL service is the ability to have several members of your household connect to AOL simultaneously. Something you cannot do without paying for that privelege. JMO - FWIW |
Twinkie | Monday, November 11, 2002 - 10:14 am     We have 6 computers networked thru a router and we have DSL and we have never paid for anything more than one hookup. We have paid the same whether we had 1 puter or 6 hooked up. We just don't tell them and do the wiring ourselves. BWT the puters are all over the house. The wiring was easy to do ourselves. |
Twinkie | Monday, November 11, 2002 - 10:16 am     Also, we can have all 6 computers being used to surf anywhere we want to go. None follows the others. Hubby is often at NFL.com while I'm at TVCH. |
Bob2112 | Monday, November 11, 2002 - 10:17 am     There are several hardware solutions that will give you both the protection of a fire wall and the ability to share a single IP address (either static or dynamic) between several computers. I haven't checked lately, but the cost of these should be around $100-$120 (or less) and will not require that you purchase additional connections from your service provider. They may want you too, but there is no way for them to either know or enforce it. The biggest thing you need to make sure of is that the hardware will provide your local computers with a local IP address via DHCP and that it uses Network Address Translation (NAT) to hide all these local address behind the real IP address provided by your ISP. Sounds nasty, but often all you need to do is plug everything in and it just works. How it typically works is that your broadband connection goes into the hardware (let's call it a router for simplicity) and the router gets the IP address supplied from you service provider. The router will provide a number of Ethernet connections (typically 4 or 8). Connect all your computers to the router using an Ethernet cable and set the computers up to get their IP address via DHCP. You will have both an internal network which will allow you to share files and printers between all your computers and a gateway to the internet that is shared by all your computers. IMHO, Since you are just sharing the same bandwidth that you use with just a single computer, I wouldn't give the ISP any additional money. I'll pass it back over to draHeiD to coordinate all questions and installations. If pressed I can come up with some specific model numbers that other developers here at work use on their home networks. I wouldn't recommend my hardware for others, since I was forced to use a certain piece of hardware in order to establish a VPN with work. It works just fine, but is a little inflexible as a firewall with respect to supporting web servers and FTP access. (Editted to Add) (Don't know why, but)Twinkie's post reminded me that for a little more money you could get a wireless "router" that would allow your computers to connect as described above, but without the need for additional wiring. It works great for walking around the house with the laptop. Access to the internal network computers will be a little slower than a wired 100mb/sec router, but will still be much faster than you connection to the internet. |
Draheid | Monday, November 11, 2002 - 10:39 am     The Cable/DSL Router that *I* use is the one I linked to in the message to Lumbele above. It's currently selling for around $80 and provides 4 ports in addition to the internet connection. I also have an additional 10/100 switch which allows me to expand my home network to include additional computers/printers/etc on the same network. I believe the switch itself is an additional $40. I personally have each of my computers setup with static IP addresses. This allows easier, IMO, access to such services as IRC, Real Player streams, etc. but is not necessary. The same manufacturer, Linksys also offers a combination Cable/DSL Router & Wireless Access Point for around $150.00. By using this device and the appropriate wireless network interfaces, you can use other computers around the house without the need of additional wiring. Again, the internet provider industry wants to charge you for each computer connected to the internet through their service. Venturing into this type of setup is not supported by the provider therefore, should you have trouble with your connection, you won't likely get support from them. Just a warning. FWIW. |
Twinkie | Monday, November 11, 2002 - 10:55 am     Dra, we also have the 10/100 switch. I have ....... DSL and have had to call them a couple of times and never had a problem since they don't know how many puters we have hooked up. We don't share that with them. Usually it was just a call to find out if it was down in the area and it always was and was being worked on and was quickly fixed. |
Bob2112 | Monday, November 11, 2002 - 11:47 am     Never had a problem with IRC, Real Player streams or any other services. As long as the hardware handles the address translation, there is no difference between static and dynamic IP addresses for outbound requests, as far as your computers are concerned. If you want to host a web server, however, then you will only have one public IP address that is visible to the world and may be routed to only one internal computer via the firewall. If it is not static, then you can not link it to a domain name and would have to address it using the actual IP number. This would be true for any inbound service you wish to host such as FTP, telnet, ssh, etc. Since most users here are likely not interested in hosting these services, this shouldn't be a problem. If I ever had a problem that needed the cable company's help (i.e. other than an outage on their side), I would just move the Ethernet cable from the router back into my main computer and reboot. Since they both use DHCP to get the IP address, no other changes are required. If there is still a problem, at least now I am configured the same way as the day it was installed. So, it all depends on what you are comfortable with. The phone company would prefer (actually wants?) you to purchase a much more expensive, dedicated data line, instead of using your existing voice line when using a modem. I don't know of anyone who does this for personal use and very few people who do it for business use. |
Jo_5329 | Tuesday, November 12, 2002 - 03:42 am     Wow -- the things I learn paying attention around here! We have 3 computers and would like to get cable or DSL. I have searched the net to learn how this can be done - networking to a hub, etc etc etc. I'm pretty sure that hubby and I could do this, if we know exact what the hell we needed! If we get a hub, there would be no need for modems in the computers? Right? Wrong? Are there hubs out there that will let us connect to the internet and share the printer? We currently have a small box/hub that lets us share one printer between us. Where does the cable from the hub go into the computer? The modem? The USB port? Okay, now MY brain hurts again ::: mumbles and wanders off to bang head against wall::: Jo --- |
Draheid | Tuesday, November 12, 2002 - 06:58 am     Jo_5329: Read about this product: Linksys Cable/DSL Router and I think you'll see just how easy it can be. Radio Shack sells this unit for around $80. The only other things you might need are network interface cards (NIC) in each computer and cables between the computers and the router. It really is simple! And Linksys does a great job of making it easy. If you have any laptop computers or if there are any computers where getting cable to them will be difficult, you might want to consider a wireless network. The Linksys Cable/DSL Router/Wireless Access Point performs all the features of the above unit plus adds wireless networking as well. Radio Shack sells this unit for $130. For the wireless, you will need wireless network cards for each computer you want connected without cables. If you need more information, try clicking around on the Linksys Website for more information and additional equipment you might need. Or just ask your questions hear and I'll try to help. Hope this helps. |
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