[Tfug] why not cable?

[Shawn Nock]

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Chad Woolley wrote:
 > Thanks for mentioning this Peter, I hadn't thought of this (or how
 > important it was).  I'm a work-at-home employee, so I live by remote
 > control software.  I now know I can never go to cable and expect the
 > same performance as DSL.

I wouldn't sound as sure as you do about the benefits of DSL vs.  
cable... Often times you can go to cable and expect better  
performance. See below.

 > On 9/12/06, Peter Collins <pcollinsca47 at gmail.com> wrote:
 >> My 2 cents on dsl vs cable for home use.
 >>
 >> The bigger pain is the lower upload speeds which impacts remote  
access via VNC
 >> or Remote Desktop

There should definitely be a YMMV inserted somewhere in here. I am  
looking at Qwest Residential and they don't offer as high an upload  
as Cox... Comcast offers pretty much the same upload speed. I run  
multiple RDP and VNC connections over IPSEC to work on 9down/1up  
cable and it is pretty much flawless. I must say that I don't notice  
a significant improvement in VNC or RDP since I upgraded from 6down/ 
512up. It has always worked very well...

I guess what I am saying is that Peter's statement is quite  
authoritative sounding, but really... There are a lot of people doing  
exactly what you are doing on cable and it's working great. Plus,  
"when you buy now" you get to receive large files at six to nine  
Mbit... compare to residential DSL @ 1.5 to 5Mbit.

In general the shared bandwidth slowdown is probably over-rated. I've  
been a Cox Customer in 3 different neighborhoods near the U (densely  
populate with eager pirates) and have never experienced any  
significant latency or "slowdown".

 >> - these are much better when connecting to a DSL site.

Obviously, from the comment above this is a point of differing opinion.

 >> Comcast
 >> (out of town) has even slower upload speeds than Cox. Transferring
 >> large files like
 >> my folk's latest photos from their cable site is like reverting  
to dialup.
 >

Dialup upload is 33.6Kbit/s max (53.3 down/33.6 up) without bonding  
hassles... Slowest cable in town is 384Kbit/s. If by reverting to  
dialup you mean an order of magnitude faster than dialup then you are  
correct.

Look, there are compelling reasons to choose DSL over cable and vice  
versa; Hype and superfluous stretches to hyperbole bordering on  
misinformation are not among them.

DSL is in general:
     cheaper
     constant speed

Cable is in general:
     faster
     available in more areas

Analyze your situation, read the material readily available and make  
and informed decision based on your needs. Take subjective  
experiences from Internet know-it-alls like me with a grain of salt  
because: YMMV.

Peace,
Shawn

- ---
Shawn Nock (OpenPGP: 0xB64200E1)
Broadcast Engineer; KUAT Communications Group
University of Arizona
nock 'at ' arizona 'dot' edu
- --
"Despair leads to boredom, electronic games, computer hacking,  
poetry, and other bad habits."  -Edward Abbey

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