Cable Providers Will Be Raising Speeds

[distilled]

Speed:
1.3 megabits per second

Communications:
1.3 megabits per second

Storage:
161.1 kilobytes per second

1MB file download:
6.4 seconds

Subjective:
rating Good

SPEEDTEST

I had Time Warner/RoadRunner Cable Modem in Austin, TX back in 1995 when it first became available in the area. It was about $59.99/month for I think ~1mb down and like ~128kb up.
I was one of the first people in my area to get it and the speeds were amazing for the first year or so;
Then I started seeing DRAMATIC slow downs and constant outages.

Moved to Denver, CO in 1999 and got AT&T DSL. Don't remember exact price or speed but I think it was $49.99 for ~368kb up to 1.5mb down and ~128kb up to ~256kb up.

I instantly fell in love with DSL. No slowdowns, no outages, consistently high speeds averaging ~768kb up to ~1.5mb almost always. Throughput on file transfers always seems faster on DSL.

Moved to Irvine, CA in 2000 and had COX Cable Modem.
This thing sucked!!!
We got in on a special for like $29.99/month for a ~1.5mb up to ~3mb down and supposedly up as well.
It sounded too good to be true and it was.
I rarely ever got near ~1mb, even at 3 a.m. And at peak hours I might as well have been on dial-up. SLOW DIALUP!!!
And we had outages for at least two days out of every month!

We eneded up moving to a different part of town that offered Verizon DSL. Switched over to a $39.99/month ~512kb up to ~1.5mb down and ~256kb up.
SUPER FAST and always up!
I swore off Cable forever after this.

But I ended up moving to College Station, TX and could only get COX Cable in my area. When school was out and the town was empty it worked great.
I actually got close to ~3mb at times.
As soon as school started up and the town filled back up with students I was lucky to get close to ~1mb.
Never really had any outages though.

Moved to Dallas, TX shortly after that (College Station SUCKS SO BAD!!&#33.
Got Verizon DSL and never had a single problem.

Now living in Austin, TX and using SBC DSL. Works great and as you can see, I'm hitting ~1.3mb. That's about average for me and I only pay $39.99 for ~768kb-~3mb down, ~512kb up.
A friend is using Time Warner Cable here in Austin and tells me his is down all the time.

I bet any Austin area Time Warner users will confirm these outages if they are being honest.

You can throw all the statistics and numbers at me you want, but based on real world experience my DSL ROCKS!!!

[Supernatural]

You say your cable speeds varied, but so do your DSL speeds... It bothers you when cable speeds vary, but it's ok when it happens with DSL? What's the difference? There must be something terrible wrong with the cable system in your area, because I haven't ever gone below 2 Mb here in New York City. We have 12 million inhabitants, so I share the lines with alot of people. When I had DSL, I was lucky to get over 650K. I never got near the advertised 768k. Uploading was terrible. The slightest upload traffic would bring overall speeds to a crawl... the point where there was no response.

DSL is just too weak. But hey... I guess it depends on your area/line quality/ISPs/etc. So it may not be the same for everyone.

[distilled]

Actually I believe I said my DSL always averages about ~1.3mb+.
The bandwidth ranges posted for my monthly fees are just to show the lowest and highest the line will ever go.
The key factor being the lowest guaranteed speed.
Cable never guarantees any speeds.
At least with my DSL I know that I will never drop below ~768kb, no matter how many users are online in my area.
My DSL speeds are constant where Cable fluctuates constantly, even on an hourly basis.
And I can honestly say I have never had an outage with DSL.
And sure Cable is raising thier speeds, but I bet a lot of that bandwidth is going to disappear quickly as digital cable TV and other digital cable features become more popular and start sucking it all up.

[Supernatural]

Actually, Digital TV doesn't affect cable modems. They both run on different frquencies. If it weren't for the different frequencies, It wouldn't be possible to have analog tv, digital tv, and cable internet running on the same lines. It's the same basic principle that allows phone lines to share analog and digital connections.

[BillyBongThorton]

Communications 383.3 kilobits per second
Storage 46.8 kilobytes per second
1MB file download 21.9 seconds
Subjective rating Not bad



More like not bad unless you actually want to downloading anything

[stephenkelly]

B)

Cool

[RingLeader]

heya, coming from holland here, my dad owns a company, and recently bought a 1gb glasfiber connection, which i can also use at home if nobody is online at the company (after closing hours) i can get incridible downloading speeds, as fast and the sever providing the data is able to give it to me. limewire (P2P) downloads reach 20mb/sec (total of all downloads), etc etc its sweet. but expensive. but having is for the whole company is way more effecienct than a normal ADSL/DSL connection as it is really slow with lots of users on it. and as it is a computer company is is way usefull. ill give you the site of the provider:

http://www.ethernet.nl/ethernetinternet/ethernet.php

its in dutch, but you can probably understand some parts of it.

[Damnatory]

Hell of a first post... Bump a 2 year old thread.

You got my hopes up when I saw a thread about cable increasing speeds.

[DrBeerMan]

Cox has increasded their speeds in several cities, I get about 9000/1000 now..as of dec. 1st actually. Before it was 5000/768

Downloaded some torrents w/ avg speeds 0f 877Kb/sec

[backlash]

mine was increased to 15Mb down/2Mb up at no extra cost.