Posted on 10/18/2004 7:14:25 AM PDT by kellynla
I would like some feedback from FReepers regarding DSL. I presently have cable modem service and have been happy with it over the years. The only problem is that when it rains the service is often down which presents a huge problem since I use the service in my busines.
Any FReepers' opinions who have had DSL and especially those who have had both DSL & cable modem would be appreciated.
I was thinking I might get DSL as a backup...
Thanks for the info.
I will know more after I contact SBC/PacBell today on the DSL & wireless services...I may get one or both just as a backup for the cable service when it goes down when it rains again. LOL
With the fees they charge, you'd think they would be able to address this and lay new cable.
Start keeping a log of down times. If the outages are significant and it is their fault, you could try to get them to give you a rebate for those times when you have non-service. If enough people complain and request rebates, they might be prompted to act quicker. Just a thought.
oh I blistered them good yesterday...got free cable tv and internet for a month...but that doesn't come close to compensating for the loss I incur in income when the service is down for a day!
Rain can cause outages with any system, including satellite. If your telephone line gets noisy after rainstorms, you will lose DSL.
good point...what about wireless? does rain affect that too?
I don't know anyone with wireless internet. It's confined to the downtown area of my city. It's cellular based, so it shouldn't be affected by weather. But who knows.
I lost electric power during two hurricanes this year, but the telephone worked fine. I keep an old fashioned phone handy for power outages, which are fairly common here.
If you are within a mile of the DSL central office, you should consider making the switch. It sounds like DSL will fit your needs. Make sure the cable co. gets an earful when you switch.
I work from home. I have BOTH Adelphia cable and Bellsouth DSL. I pay the extra for the fastest of both. Adelphia blocks some of the ports that I'd like to surface a server on (ftp and http for example) so I have my servers on the DSL connection ( 3 Mbps down / 512 kbps up) and leave the Adelphia connection for most other uses ( 4 Mbps down / 768 kbps up). I have the routers through which each is connected hooked up to my main switch and addressed in the same \24 subnet so that by changing default gateway addresses I can change which internet connection is used.
I find both work well, sometimes dsl dies, sometimes cable dies, but I'm always online.... except for when the pole on which power AND cable are connected was decapitated... but then I can use the cellphone as a modem too.
You'd think, but not always. Dialup always went to crap, sometimes for over a month at a time no matter what ISP, during wetter times of the year, but we've had our DSL for nearly 2 years now and nothing comparable has happened. We'd had a few short downtimes during extreme weather (due mainly to power failures at critical places on their end or downed lines) and a few more due to routine maintenance, but they've been really good about keeping it to late night/early am. I'd say it's definitely much more reliable than either the cable I've worked with or any dialup I've ever had...768 down 128 up is what the package is supposed to be, but we regularly seem to exceed both by decent margins. I'd never willingly switch.
Cable (I have RoadRunner) has shown itself to be faster and more reliable than DSL. End of argument.
I was running a similar setup (real-time data, trading). Dialup worked just fine as a backup. The amounts of data are small, delays in the data can happen at any point in the routing so the slower dialup adds a small amount to the risk of data loss/late that already exists. When using dialup the data/order entry was as reliable as cable, but we could not use other web apps (actually we could but at the risk of slight delays in data).
We never lost trading time to a connection failure, a bigger risk was systematic failure outside of our control.
Your cable provider probably provides a "free" 20 hours per month of dialup for when you are away from home or in the case of cable access failure.
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