Cable or DSL your opinions please

[madmax]

Should we switch from Cable TV and Internet to satellite dish and DSL?

I'm happy with the speed of cable but, I can get a great deal with a satellite dish, dsl and phone service package. More for less than I pay now just for cable and internet connection.

If you use dsl are you happy with the service and speed?

All opinions and advice greatly appreciated. ;) Thank you.

[TlalocW]

1. Since I don't watch TV...

DSL speed depends on how far away you are from the network station.
Cable speed depends on how many other people in your area are using it.

I have cable, and I've always been happy with it, but that's because I go and snip everyone's cable wires whenver I see the installation van in my neighborhood.

TlalocW

[Florida_Geek]

7. Bad Cop no Donut.

:spank::spank::spank::spank::spank::spank::spank:

[MurrayDelph]

2. It was an easy choice for me...

I hate my cable company (when we first moved in, they didn't want to
run any cable until we had signed up for multi-packages for which they weren't, and still aren't, willing to give you a price in advance; when we experienced outages during the day, we were told that we had no business being at home trying to watch during the day).

But what it really came down to is:
when the DSL is down, I can watch TV
when the TV signal is out, I can use my computer
if I get both from the same source and it goes down, I'm screwed.

[denverbill]

3. I have DSL and Dish.

The Dish beats the snot outta cable, IMO. The picture beats digital cable by a mile, since there is no analog/digital interference to screw up your local channels.

Can't say I've ever tried cable internet though. I've only used DSL at home. Some DSL providers are better than others. I used to have Mile High Online as my ISP and Qwest, and with that setup, my supposed 256/650K DSL line was no faster than dialup. I switched to Qwest as my ISP, and now I get pretty good speed, IMO. It's not T1 fast, but it's much much better than dialup.

[Hand]

16. Agreed...

Satellite offers a lot more options for channel selection, and at least at Bell ExpressVu they're pretty well organized so that if you don't want any of those goddam country music stations, you can simply not select the package that contains them, for example.

We have DSL via the telephone company and in our case get full speed service; I think that's because we were one of the later areas in our town that was hooked up, so we're quite close to a substation and all the technical glitches were worked out by the time it reached us.

That's the tricky thing about DSL, though; quality (i.e., speed) and reliability can fluctuate wildly among providers and even within a serviced area. It just happened that our provider was one of the first in North America, and perfected consumer service before going to commercial service.

[Florida_Geek]

4. I LOVE DSL

and just got on DSL with Verizon for $29.00 vs Earthlink dialup at 21. I had Earthlink DSL for a couple years at $50 per month but had to give it up due to $$$ of being out of work.

I have the 1.5Mb DSL and it is fast.

[felonious thunk]

5. I've used both

and as far as download times I haven't found much difference between DSL and cable internet. Haven't had satellite internet though. The only real discernable difference I ever found between cable and DSL internet service is that I tended to have more down time issues with DSL than cable, believe it or not.

[frylock]

6. dsl user here..

pulling a steady 1200Kb. Only had one outage in almost 4 years of service. If you chose DSL, make sure that it's ADSL, and that you are in close proximity to the CO (central office). dslreports.com used to have an applet that would show you how far you were from the nearest CO.

[Florida_Geek]

8. They still do

:)

[Cappadonna]

9. Cable ismore stable than DSL , but DSL can reach more people:

This has to due with signals processing and physics......Basically, DSL works by effective "splitting" your phone line in to streams, data (internet) and voice (the phone itself). This is why you get that weird crackling sound in your phone when you use DSL, what you hear is basically data whizing to and from your PC. And, because it still works more or less like a phone line, the signal wanes as you get farther from the main data center. In other words, there is no difference between Cable and DSL if you live in midtown near bell-alantic. However, if you live in the boonies of Nasau County, the DSL signal tends to start to die off, not by a lot, but enough for a computer geek to notice the difference.

DSL main advantage is that its works on fiber-optic cable for phone lines, which are pretty much everywhere. Believe it or not, there still places in this country that don't have cable. But damn near everyone has access to phone lines. And as local phone companies update their data stream infrastructure, DSL will move to become the dominant broadband technology.

[elifino]

10. dsl and dish

IT pro, use dsl for remote support 2000 workstations, Bellsouth.net.
No Problems what so ever, I use a router, and 10\100 switch for my home network. I am set up to work from home or office.

Have the Dish network, only problem is during a heavy rain you will lose the signal.

[frylock]

11. estimated wire distance to co?

If you're over 14,000' away, you may experience slower speeds.

http://www.dslreports.com/prequal/distance

[madmax]

13. Thank you!!

Results
Provider Distance
6696 feet

I guess I should get decent results :bounce:

[frylock]

15. you should get 1.5 meg, no problemo, at that distance.

[madmax]

12. I knew I'd get good advice from you guys - keep'em coming

I now pay 109.00 for cable and internet.

What piqued my interest is seeing so many of my neighbors now have the dish. They're popping up like tulips all over the place. :P

[cmf]

14. I've had both and I prefer cable

Cable is more stable than DSL. Our DSL connection is always getting cut. Plus cable seemed faster. But DSL is cheaper, so that's why we have it.

[madmax]

17. check out your distance

from the link frylock posted in #11.

[varun]

19. I suggest you get your phone through cable too...

...I pay my cable company for both TV and internet, but get my phone through a company called vonage.com

For $25 per month, I get unlimited long distance / local calls...all through the calbe.

I got rid of Bellsouth and save about $60 per month...

[madmax]

21. Yes, doing that too

Got a great deal with Verizon for phone service both home and cell phones. Will only have one bill and the whole package will cost around 85 and change.

I now pay AT&T and Verizon for home phone - don't ask me I can't even figure out their bills.

Cingular for cell phone.

Comcast for Cable and Internet.

Now one bill for all this b.s. and I pay online.

[caledesi]

18. Cable - 3 years and going great. DSL friends have problems. nt

[blackcat77]

20. I use cable and am delighted with it

It's up 99+% of the time and consistant dl speeds of 3000 kb.

[Mick Knox]

22. I have Sat and DSL

Re DSL.. couldnt live without it..

Re SAT: If I had a cable company option.. I would switch... the reason may not apply to your situation.. weather..

I get snow.. need to go goof with the thing to clean it off.

I get high winds.. it gets moved around and bad reception.

Bad weather = problems with reception.

In my experience.

Edit for Sat Pref:
I use dish network..
Get something else.. no football PPV channels!

[madmax]

23. I'm happy with my cable internet service

but, I hate the cable tv stations. I watch 1/3 of them - a few months back they changed. Now there are more tv preachers and channels like HSN, QVC etc. I subscribe for basic cable and HBO which costs 70 a month. With the dish I'll get more stations - local, plus 7 HBO and Cinemax for less.

My major concern was/is the internet connection - I do like the speed and consistantly good internet connection.

[loftycity]

24. Cable depends on the company Time Warner does a better job ..

than AT&T or Comcast (new name for AT&T).
I liked DSL ...It wasn't bad either. By far Time Warner had the best service here in Minnesota. Depends on where you live.