I have had Cable for just about 2 years now and love it. The only problems I have had was a modem crapping out 4 months ago but was replaced by the cable company the same day. I was temped to go to DSL at one time untill I saw the problems that my brother in law had with slowing down and dropping off.

 

*** Cable here. No complaints about reliability or speed. I use an SMC Barricade router, have a wired 10/100 network.

 

I don't have a choice here in Podunk, Iderho, so I get cable one and run my wired network through a linksys router. My speeds are actually faster than advertised most of the time and the only problem I've ever had was because I assigned all my puters a static address.

We can run 3 computers (usually gaming or chat rooms) and a PS2 without anyone complaining about losing speed.

Chad

 

New user here, just thought I would share what I know. I work for the local phone/cable/cellular/whatever they want us to do phone company.

First for easy to set up go cable, biggest problem is you better have a good anti-virus, spyware program, and you better have your back doors locked down. With cable you are on one big network and anyone with a little experence with a computer can hack inside it. As for speed it is fast unless the cable company go cheap on the bandwith and overloads your cable node that is what makes cable run fast one sec. and slow as snot the next. We have some nodes with people running 8meg speds most run 1 meg. but the more people useing it the slower it is.

DSL is a constant pipe to your house all the time wether you use it or not. Problems are depending on what type of ADSL your telco is running. Some require username password everytime it sets idle for 10min. So if you read slow or type slow you have to reconnect. We run the slow version of ADSL and doing a speed test we allow around 380bps. You will download bugs a whole lot faster. Most telcos require a homerun of cat 5 wire from your modem to the interface on the outside of the house. Some sell you filters to go on your phones, if one goes bad, connection goes out. Static on the line will cause it to die.

In both cases alot of people don't realize your computer is the week spot. If you have alot of programs running in the background it will be slow. If it is a old computer running windows 98 it will be slow. you have a lot of spyware or adware on it (slow).

Myself I'm on dsl it works fine for me the only problem has been lighting damage. Cable has great speed but I dont like the unsafe connection.

 

If you get a router and put it between your cable modem and your computer, that takes care of the majority of hacking. There's a test I've run a few times called Shields Up! that tests for a secure connection, and mine always says I'm running in "stealth mode"

 

Some of the new cable modems have several ports on them with a built in router. ALWAYS RUN A ROUTER WITH A CABLE MODEM!!!

 

Yes a router will take care of a lot of the problems but it can be bypassed unless it is running nat. Some routers also have a firewall built into them. This is about the only way to stop what you dont want from comming into your network.
Cable is good. One of the guys I work with is on our cable service, he swears by it. The dsl in his area is SBC and he was begging to get off of it cause of the protocal they run. When it comes to security they both have downfalls. That just happens to be the way the internet age if going.
Just wait it has already started in some areas but soon you won't have a choice between the two you will have a fiber optic cabe to your house running your phone, cable, internet at the same time. Some telcos & cable companys are doing this now. With 8meg + on the internet side.

 

Man, all you DSL users really working hard to make it sound good. No thanks.

 

I have waited for three years for DSL, "they" keep telling me it will come soon, I am at this point tired of waiting going to go Cable and lose the dial-up.