some ?'s about high speed internet

[dirty_canadian4894]

ive got dial up right now and im tring to talk my parents into getting highspeed of some sort so i can download music and play xbl and xbc. what should i need to know about highspeed? like is cable better than dsl or what else is there and what would be the best router and modem choices? im just asking for info about it.

i live in a small iowa town so i dont think there are many choices here but atm i have iowatelecom dialup ( iowatelecom.net ) (dsl) and mediacom digital cable for my tv (mediacomcc.com ) (cable) i think there might also be lysco or something like that but i have to do some research on that one.

[Blennidae]

I'm no expert, but I have had both DSL (2 different providers) and cable. I currently have DSL, as cable is not available where I currently live. With my first DSL provider (SBC/Yahoo was originally Pacbell) when I first had it installed it worked as advertised 1.5mb/128 and was fairly reliable. It did have its occasional problems where I'd be down for an hour or 2.

It was like that for a couple years. Then all of a sudden things started getting bad. I was offline for about day so I called the tech support and they came to check my lines. They said they fixed it and while I was back up, my speed was roughly half what it was. When I asked about it, they asid thats the best they could do. It was like that for a few months, and I learned to live with it, then it happened again. They did the same thing. Cut me d/l speed to about 450k. Since it was still above the CONTRACT minimum of 384k, there was nothing I could do about it. They told me it was because the phone people would swap cables at the main box whenever a new person moved into the apt. complex so I ended up with more and more copper between me and the main switch box.

The cable folks (Comcast) knocked on my door one day and offered to hook me up for a great deal, and since I was already dragging on DSL I figured I had nothing to loose. On cable I was rocking along at 3mb down. This was twice as fast as my DSL had ever been. It was very steady and I only had one outage in the 6-8 months I had it. I never had it slow down, so I guess my neighbors did not have it and I was the only one using it.

When I moved, cable was not available so since I am an Earthlink subscriber I went with them. I am happy with my speed 1.9-2mb down, but the installation was a nightmare. I was trying to do a simple upgrade from dialup to DSL and they could not get it right. Many issues including someone with my same name (different earthlink ID) seemed to gum up the works. The people who take the DSL order, are not the same ones who do the install, and they kept screwing it up. I had to cancel and replace the order 3 times.

As for the modem, the provider will give you whatever they are using. So there is no real choice there. You just take the cable from the BB modem and plug it into your router and go. I bought a linksys and it was a pretty easy setup. and changing it to the different providers was also simple.

Based on my experience, I would have preferred to stay with cable, but I'm ok with my current DSL speeds. One thing for sure is, regardless of what speed is available to you, it will be better than dialup.

Hope that helps some.

[dirty_canadian4894]

thanks blennidae that was quick. i think im gonna get mediacom cable i just need to know what the best router for using an x box and 2 computers would be

[MayAMonkeyBeYourPinata]

Cable

[RevBrown]

I have never had dsl. But I am very happy with cable.

[fire1811]

i have mediacom cable and havent had any problems with it.
your speeds now are 3000 down 256 up

supposidly there going to 5000 512 soon.

[Python14]

At home I have cox highspeed and holy crap, it's great. From time to time, my connection just gets faster cuz Cox with just randomly upgrade us to a faster connection. Last I checked, my house got like 4000 down and 512 up.

The school network here sounds like Blennidies DSL nightmare.

[Kevmaster]

cable / dsl rocks

and for a router, any brand will work, linksys works really well. we also have used some asante (professional models) around here too.

[pbzmag]

Check www.dslreports.com for user comments. I have SBC and have no problems. I pretty much got DSL when it was first offered and had not downtime. The only problem I had was waiting for the installation and the tech who was suppose to install it. I waited the WHOLE day waiting for the MF to show up. He never showed up or called. I ended calling the dispatcher the next day and two SBC telephone installers came by. IMHO, go with an ISP, DSL or Cable, that has a record of good service.

[drewrw]

cable, i work at insight though may be a little biased!!! no j/k 4meg down and 256kb up..... not bad im a tier 2 tech so in my professional opinion get cable

[skife]

3 meg download cable it rocks

Cable > all

[fire1811]

i just wish cable companies would give us better upload and leave the down alone.

most sites cant even use the full 3000 download so its pretty much pointless to give us more.

i would much rather have 2-3000 down and 512 or more upload.

[Chris42050]

Where I live cable gets 3mb download. Dsl gets about 1mb. Cable is more reliable here too.

[gamarada717]

DSL blows. On the site test, it says that I get around 1.5 meg download, and 350k up. What I actually get from every website is 150k download. It will start around 500k and then slow down to 150. But because SBCs gay little test says that I'm getting these high speeds, they won't do anything about it.

[Destructo6]

I've done two Verizon DSL self-installs and have been quite happy with them. I'm also running an Airlink wireless-G router with the second install with no problems as yet.