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cable internet good or not?
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Posted by: Gilles Boudreau
Hi, I know of a lady that want to install internet and was offered cable internet. Is it a good option compare to regular phone connection. It is aprox. the same price per month but what about all the rest. Never heard about it yet. Just to say they already have cable at their house. Thanks for any answer 
Posted by: The-AoD
Ok, here's the lowdown.
Average Dialup is 4.0kb/s download/upload speed.
Average Cable connection is 50kb/s download/upload speeds.
The cable connections are usually faster than dialup in 99% of locations. Unless you live in downtown New York, where everyone is on the same line, you'd get the best performance from cable.
DSL is another option, giving an unshared(Which cable is shared through a network of many houses) connection where the speeds are always the same. DSL can be more effieceint, specially in highly populated areas.
In a more suburban area, cable will usually be the fastest connection available (depending most on the cable modem, and company who supplies them). In highly populated, city areas, DSL is usually the best option.
Either way, they are both a huge step over Dialup (through a phone line).
Posted by: redwench
the only downside to cable over dialup is cost. if they are the same, then its an obvious choice.
Posted by: Gazornenplat
I have cable internet in west Texas and my speeds are about 2.5-3.0Mbps down and 50-75Kbps up. The provider I use (Cox cable) also has a premium package offering 4.0Mbps downspeed. The cheaper package runs $40/month if you already have cable TV through Cox and $50 if you don't. I have no idea what speeds and prices are like in other states, but they should be able to tell you.
Posted by: trekpsycho
I have cable with Charter at 2.5Mbps download for 39.95 a month. Works fast and haven't had any problems with it. For what its worth.
Posted by: redwench
wrong country guys 
Posted by: Bix VT
I live in VA, use Cox internet, and I get 500k/sec dl rate, when the max I ever got on dialup was 5k/sec. Cable is literally 100 times faster than dialup in a lot of cases, sometimes more. DSL is slower, but if you live in a highly populated area, such as downtown, then I'd reccomend DSL. Otherwise, go for cable, it's worth the extra $10 per month for me.
Posted by: Gazornenplat
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Good point. I never look at anybody's location anymore, since most of them are like "in front of my computer" or "beyond the regions of Neth'teral".
Posted by: AOTY2KB
I take it Rogers or Shaw is offering this, go with the cable. It will cost about $50CDN, a little less because she already has cable TV.
Contrary to what some of the others have said, cable is the better choice as it is an unshared connection, whereas DSL has a limited bandwith do to how many people are on the network. This may be my case as there are many people on DSL where I live and Aliant has put a bottleneck recently to lower the bandwith to each customer. Thus creating a more reliable service and charging $5 more to get 3mbps, instead of 1.5mbps that it has recently become. DSL also only works optimally if you live in the 2km radius of the base station, at least that is what Aliant is trying to sell its customers.
If I am mistaken I gladly ask someone to enlighten me in order to call this one of those fluke scenarios.
Posted by: NegotiatorSmith
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Contrary to what some of the others have said, cable is the better choice as it is an unshared connection, whereas DSL has a limited bandwith do to how many people are on the network.
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This is kind of correct; both DSL and cable connections do not have infinite bandwidth and the bandwidth is affected by how many people are using it, but a cable connection IS shared among subscribers in a certain area, like a neighborhood. DSL connections are also shared, but further up the line (more towards the ISP's end). The bottom line is this: if a few users are consuming a lot of an ISP's total bandwidth, everyone else will notice it.
As for the original question, I use Comcast cable at home and I am satisfied with it. The bandwidth is certainly much greater than the bandwidth of my previous Verizon dial-up connection, and I have had no problems with excessive packet loss and/or latency. All of the issues that have come up with my cable connection have eventually been resolved by Comcast.
Posted by: Gilles Boudreau
What about the modem? Does it have to be special I mean does the regular modem inside will work with cable? Thanks for all the comments
Posted by: redwench
no. she will need an ethernet card if one is not built in to her motherboard. the cable company should provide a modem.
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