posted 10-10- 08:02 PM               

Here's what they say about expected speeds:
Downstream speed up to 1.5 Mbps
Upstream speed up to 512 Kbps
"In our experience, you can expect to encounter many sites which can't deliver more than 128 kilobits per second on a good day."

I rarely get over 50K/sec with @Home.. usually around 30.... I wonder if my settings are screwed though (I installed a few cable modem speed boosters). My friend says he never gets under 100 K/sec with @Home.
My mom works for the company offering ADSL, so I get %30 off the monthly price, PLUS they are having a special on, where they cut 1/2 off the installation fee. I already checked, and my house does qualify for ADSL service, and I could have it hooked up by next thursday.

I think I already made up my mind, but I wanted to see you you guys thought.

posted 10-10- 08:06 PM               

You do realize you will be giving up unlimited usage right? There is a limit on how many bytes per month you can send/receive on ADSL in calgary unless you get a static IP account for twice the money.

TS

posted 10-10- 09:18 PM               

AH now this is a debate.

LOL

K Well it sounds like Tail has a sweet setup, and yours Jag is messed.

I personally run Bell/Sympatico ADSL. Its 960k down, Not sure about up but not much.

In real #s I get 120KB, As long as the server can send it that fast thats what I get it at too. Some places are slower but man when I get a good server it rocks. LOL

Now I feel that anything under 20 is slow and quit downloading from that site.

I would say that GOOD cable CAN be faster, but It doesn't sound like your using good stuff.

I think the main difference between cable and DSL is the shared bandwidth issue. The neighborhood network syndrome hehe. AND ping.

I know when I switched to DSL my ping didn't change that much but its more solid. I think on cable you get a much better ping but theres nothing wrong with mine. Maybe DSL doesn't get as good ping or maybe bell messed up. I'm not sure.

About Capping, I havn't heard of any caps on my service. BUT when I enquired about Cable thats coming here soon the woman told me there was a 1 GIG cap on downloads a month. I almost choked. I can finish that off in probly 3-6 days.

So here cable is capped and Adsl isn't, wacky.

Havn't they heard of Porn? I thought thats why the internet was invented?

posted 10-11- 07:48 PM               

ADSL is capped.
Five GB download, one GB upload per month

I'm told that they don't strictly enforce that limit. My friend who has ADSL from this company says he always blows by his limits, but they don't do anything. I don't think I could D/L 5GB in one month, even if I tried

posted 10-11- 08:44 PM               

Wa I wish I could see how much I DL in a month.

I don't know how you COULDN'T DL 5 gigs LOL.

I download EVERYTHING lol

I would say maybe try uninstalling all your cable software and reinstalling, But I'm not sure how much there is.

posted 10-11- 09:32 PM               

I don't think theres a cap on @home here, sometimes I get 400Kb/second but most of the time its limited to the speed of the internet.

TS

posted 10-11- 11:40 PM               

I don't know much about cable modems, but I do know that ADSL depends a lot on the provider. Verizon (formerly Bell Atlantic) generally has terrible installations which drag on for months. Then the DSL works pretty well for a month or two, then you go through a week of problems. Their tech support is of the "Did you try reinstalling windows?" type.

I would strongly suggest that you research your local DSL and cable providers and find out how happy thier existing customers are... a great site for this is www.dslreports.com Click on the forums link and you can find forums on all the major providers. It was here that I learned that my Verizon problems were shared by hundreds of people during the same week; it was great ammunition when tech support wanted me to reinstall Windows.

posted 10-12- 08:26 PM               

As far as the whole debate between cable vs. DSL.

DSL: How close do you live to their office? The closer you are-the faster your connection. When they say "up to..." they mean it. It can be very low or very quick.

Cable: Have they upgraded the amount of equipment in proportion to the amount of NEW customers? Probably not. Do they feed you a line everytime you ask to speak to their Technical Manager with your prob? Probably do. Bottom line is, if you yell load enough, your prob will be handled in direct proportion. I'm constantly amazed at the rotten service people recieve from us and DO NOT complain.

posted 10-12- 09:27 PM               

HEHE, good ol distance from office. I know it matters but i'm not sure how much. I had it right downtown about 5 blocks from the office and got around 100 tops.

A freind of mine lives near the fring and still gets 100.

I moved way across town and now I get 120.

I'm guessing they set up a new dealy. LOL Can't remember what they call them again.

Don't forget the whole # of people with cable. Maybe theres ALOT of people on cable in Jags area and they are sucking up all the bandwidth.

Theres a very funny commercial here that shows a family that got cable internet. Then the father found out he was sharing with everyone else in the area and bought all the houses in the area, then the kids didn't have anyone to playwith anymore and they are wandering the streets all sad. Cracks me up every time.

posted 10-12- 09:32 PM               

Thats a good idea spanky. I'll give it a try this weekend.

I'll give the @Home dudes a call this Weekend........ Probably after work on Saturday. If they don't straighten this out for me, then I'll boot my cable modem out the door. Mind you, I'll miss the customer service they provide. Whith this new company, you haveto press 2 million buttons on their automated help line to speak to a human. I wish I knew sombody here in town that has ADSL from that company.

I think Diego may be right TS. Or maybe there are a hell of a lot of people in my area with @Home.... I has just been getting worse ever since I had it (I live in a house, not an apartment BTW). I hate looking at the bottom of my netscape window and seeing: 1% of 100K (at 5.0K/sec, 10 days remaining)
.... I wonder if they would be able to give me an exact number of what kida speeds I will be seeing with ADSL....Then, I wonder if they will actually tell me...I'm not sure how far away I am from the office, although I'm not that far from downtown. @Home sucks?.... Jelous? HAHAHA..... Actually, in the position I am in now, I'm not thinking too highly of them.

posted 10-12- 09:48 PM               

Like I said, keep calling the cable guys and bugging them, once they came out and fixed mine up I haven't had many problems.

posted 10-12- 10:39 PM               

Tail I'm thinking you've seen the bad stuff about DSL, Have you had ANY good experiences with it?

I've hooked it up 3 times in the last 6 months and it always works out great.

BTW If i see anything under 20K on a download I say screw it and Cancel.

LOL

Too bad theres a hook up charge on this stuff or i would say just give the DSL a try and if you don't like it go back to cable.

Actually Maybe you should try to speak to someone higher up in the DSL company and say your on Cable right now but would like to try DSL and see if you can get a free hookup and first month.

The first Time i hooked up I got a free hook up (i did it myself) and free month AND a free network card that I kept.

The second time The deal was free setup (myself again) and net card (still shrink wrapped in box) and 29 a month for the first 3 months then up to the regular 39.

BTW Do you guys think its crazy that company charge hookup fees for anything? Like cable, hydro, phone, gas and such.

Your already planning on being a long term customer shouldn't they already figure they are going to make enough money off ya? You don't pay at the door to get in walmart do ya? Such bullshit.

My Dad bought a Gas dryer to replace his electric one, but its sitting there useless cause he doesn't want to pay them the $200 to hook it up (they need to tap a line off the furnace and extend it) Such a freaking joke.

"Oh you want to hook up another applience to our service so we can make MORE money off you everymonth? Welp I think were going to have to charge you MORE money just for the privilege of getting more of our gas"

Make you want to beat them upside the head with the thing.

I plan on building my own home, I also plan on having 1 MAYBE 2 lines coming on my properity, Phone and/or Cable, (And some times i wonder about those) besides that I plan on being fully self sufficiant. Screw them if they think they are going to drain my pockets for there bullshit.

posted 10-13- 01:00 PM               

I have DSL - like Spanky, if I hit a DL site that can't keep up, I cancel the DL...under 20 is definitely too slow. I DL'd a 70 Meg game demo last week at 125. I tried another from the same site later and it wouldn't go over 19, so many factors affect DL speeds. Price is definitely a issue, and getting a good deal is very important, but scrificing tech support and performance for price can frustrate you.

If we had cable in this area, I'd be tempted to try it on one of our computers, just to see the difference, but ATT is still a long way away from offering cable modem here. I use PacBell for DSL and have had ups and downs with the service; I pay for static IP's. As mentioned earlier, www.dslreports.com is a excellent source for customer reviews of DSL providers and DSL information; also, www.speedguide.net and www.timhiggins.com contain much good info on both.

I'd say currently it seems 50/50; a lot depends on your location and the quality of the provider no matter which way you go, but when you have a good one, both are wonderful.

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nealg=FC=

posted 10-13- 04:44 PM               

When it's up, it's fast. Downloading multiple large files from fast sites I've gotten over 200K/sec.

posted 10-13- 06:48 PM               

It's retarded that they charge you an "installation fee"...... I think it's just a tool they use to get people to sign on..... %50 OFF INSTALLATION FEE! SIGN UP NOW!!!! I really doubt that they would transfer me to someone higher if I called though.

hehehe, I love your rants spanky =) I'M BUILDING MY OWN DAMN HOUSE!!!....ooohh.... DSL is good.
LOL

I'm looking at $40/month for cable and $29 for ADSL...... But I would rather pay the 40 if I'm GOING TO get higher speeds.

posted 10-14- 11:06 PM               

Razor747, I pay 40 or so, for 960k and it supposed to be sped up a little in the near future. I'm thinking around 1200 or something.

That including everything, modem rental, lines, and ISP and bandwidth unlimited.

I hear about people in the states paying for DSL and then having to sign up with an ISP too. What a crock.

Thats insane that they are chargeing you an activation fee.

I can almost see setup fees if someone comes to your house. Its the activation fee that really gets my goat.

posted 10-15- 12:33 AM               

I've had a cable modem for four years and I've setup ADSL for a tech company and an oil company, and we have both ADSL and cable where i currently work.

The worst experience I've ever had was with ADSL, mostly because I had to deal with two seperate companies.. the ISP and the telephone company. Every time there was a problem the telephone company said it was the ISP's fault and the ISP said it was the telephone company's fault.

It took two months from first ordering ADSL it to get it installed. After it was installed it constantly went down and had poor speed because the telephone line quality in the building was poor. More finger pointing and telephone calls, lots of frustration, finally the phone company came down to test the line then we had to get new line run from the telephone room to the top of the building. Even after it was working we had periods of down times that lasted for days while other issues got sorted out. They finally fixed it by reducing the speed of the ADSL connection.

Same sort of deal at another place I worked when we had Sprint install a bunch of T1 lines.

Cables not perfect either but it all comes down to your ISP. At least with cable you don't run the risk of the ISP and the phone company doing a bunch of finger pointing. The second ADSL provider in town that Jag is looking at is also a spinoff of the phone company so I assume they won't have the same problems and they have excellent uptime. The traffic limit is the only reason I don't give it a try too.

TS

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Patch It!

posted 10-15- 01:49 AM               

AH, My dsl is through sympatico, which is a sub company of bell canada as far as i can tell. So its all one company.

I did a self install and they waived the activation fee. I was up and running in about 10 days, they ship the modem right to your door.

All in all its just what I expected. Fast reliable and easy to set up and cheap. Only 5 megs of webspace though So i don't even bother paying it.

They only think I see that bugs me is the URL/dns? server seems slow sometimes.

I type in an addy and it lags while waiting for the IP #. But its not all that often and once it has the IP its all good.