I Have a quick question about DSL

[Fly2e]

I was wondering if anybody could give me heads up on this. Unfortunately I am still on dial up at home and have high speed at my office so I am familiar with both ends of the spectrum. My question is: How much faster is DSL from dial up or how much slower it is from cable. With my house extension being almost complete and our 2ND child due in May, we will be getting something since Barbara will be working from home a few days a week. We really don't have the $ to swing almost $50 a month for high speed, well I do but my wife the accountant thinks not!

[Jared]

hmmm I'm only using the 56K still, but I have heard that DSL is very fast for downloading, but long time waiting to upload...:-)

[ATI_7500]

i've got a 768/128 connection,this meand i can upload at 128kbits/second (~16 kbytes/second) and download at 768kbits/second (~96 kbytes/second).
i'm able to download a 1.5gb file within 5 hours. and that's pretty fast,isn't it.
here in germany, i pay 12

[Romulus111VADT]

I have an ADSL (Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Link) connection. ADSL is a technology for transmitting digital information at a high bandwidth on existing phone lines to homes and businesses. Unlike regular dialup phone service, ADSL provides continously-available, "always on" connection. ADSL is asymmetric in that it uses most of the channel to transmit downstream to the user and only a small part to receive information from the user. ADSL simultaneously accommodates analog (voice) information on the same line. ADSL is generally offered at downstream data rates from 512 Kbps to about 6 G.lite, has been approved as a standard by the ITU-TS.

My ratings are as follows:
Speed
556.2 kilobits per second

Communications 556.2 kilobits per second
Storage 67.9 kilobytes per second
1MB file download 15.1 seconds
Subjective rating- not bad

Test discription:

The speed test results
Communications
How communication devices are rated. Kilo means 1,000 and mega means 1,000,000. Examples include 56k modem and 10Mbit Ethernet.

Storage
The way data is measured on your hard drive and how file sharing and FTP programs measure transfer speeds. Kilo is 1,024 and mega is 1,048,576.

File download
The time it would take you to download a 1 megabyte file at this speed.

Subjective rating
This is a rating of your connection compared to all other connections worldwide. The scale used is one we made up.

Bits(b), Bytes(B), and Baud
Bits and bytes are a measurement of electronic information. A byte is always 8 bits. Communications speeds are usually measured in bits per second while many computer operations are measured in bytes per second. A "56k" modem is 56 kilobits and a "2m" DSL connection is 2 megabits per second. "128MB" of RAM is 128 megabytes. Ideally when abbreviations are used, b means bits and B means bytes. Baud rate is another measure of transmission speed and is the number of actual signals sent per second. At one time it was equal to the bits per second, but modern technology allows us to send more than one bit per electric signal.

Mega(M) and kilo(K)
Traditionally kilo means one thousand exactly. In the communications world engineers call a thousand bits transmitted in a second 1 kilobit per second. Makes sense. Now while 1000 is a nice round number for humans to work with, it isn't for computers. Mathematically speaking humans use decimal or base 10 numbers and computers use binary or base 2. 1024 is 2 to the power of 10 which is a significant binary value and so is represented by kilo in the computer world. Mega is similar except it means one million and in the computer world is 1024 kilo or 1,048,576. Ideally when abbreviations are used, k means 1000 and K means 1024.

I pay about $40.00 per month USD

[Romulus111VADT]

Advantages and Disadvantages of Choices you might consider:

Cable Modem

Cable Modem,

[Rivers]

DSL is very good I have a 256 kb dsl, its good for games downloads and I always use msn's voice conversation with no lag the only problem is te slow upload, but even this is much better then Dial up.
It is worth it.

[Fly2e]

Thanks for your replies. I do appreciate it!
I think I will be going with the DSL since,
It is available in my area,
I can run up to 4 pc's off the one line,
I rarely "upload" stuff,
They send me a box with the software I need,
It is very simple to start up,
It will just be added onto my monthly phone bill and
there is no contract...pay as you go!
At this point, it makes the most sense for me.  ;D
One day I will get the high speed cable.......I guess when the kids are in college!  :'(  


Thanks,
Dave

[Deputy]

DSL = It sucks. Get cable instead.

[Delta_]

At my sixth form we have a government standard 2MBit line.  700kb/sec (on a good day) 200kb/sec (on a bad one)  we normally get around 450kb/sec.

[Lethal.Ambition]

DSL is fine but I used DSL for one month after dial-up. I tought DSL was the BOMB but when I got cable the month after I know Cable is truly THE bomb.

[Scottler]

I pay out the ____ for cable, but I absolutely LOVE IT!  Worth every penny, IMO.

[Wing Nut]

I pay $40.00 per month for cable (but I don't have cable TV, go figure) and I only have 5 words...

152 Megabytes in 9 minutes!

However, I will agree it does slow down some in peak hours.  Gets real annoying at times.

[Fozzer]

I have 56k dial-up with 2-hour cut-off times, (instant re-connect).
This allows me Internet access, from Monday to Friday, (6PM until 8AM), and the whole of Saturday and Sunday for a fixed charge of

[elvis767]

Ride a push bike or drive a car the differences are defined by what you wish to do, I like DSL because i pay a flat rate. and i download constantly, thus away I see greate movies so i dont realy have to travel to the video store, if i want music, its thier. And my friends who pay for cable, get what they want, so its like cable computer, pluss and this is the real seller. I can use my computer to talk to any person across the world just like the phone, only it is not costing me big Overseas calls Dollars. ADSL is Fantastic  ;D

[Brett_Henderson]

Obviously, as stated.. allot depends on your location, time and local congestion... But the high-end DSL (not sure what letter goes first (S, A or I)) from my service (SBC) gives consistently faster EVERYTHING (gaming, d-loads, u-loads) than any cable I've seen. I get an average of 1.3MBPS never below 1.1MBPS.. It's not the bargain service they advertise, but it's well worth $40/MO (US)..  I had cable.. never go back.