DSL Downgrades > Cable vs. DSL

Cable vs. DSL

I disagree, Cable companies like to crowd there nods. People take a chance with DSL because they want dedicated bandwidth. That's my opinion though, others might disagree...

Things get crowded no matter what. A node can be broken up or you can just add more upstream and downstream ports to a node. The concept that a node is limited and then cable companies just force more than they should is not correct. I admit some cable companies probably do push it but that is the company, not the technology.

The same things can happen with DSL. Pipes can get crowded, DSL does not have unlimited pipes to the internet or hardware with unlimited capacity.

I think one problem with DSL is the fact that cable length can change because it actually may. For example, if a neighborhood gets a lot of customers the phone company may actually run new cable and "shift" people around.

reply to elias

reply to keyboard5684

NOT TRUE!

Most cable companies are hybrid fiber/Coax. Fiber runs from the Headend to the node, and is distributed from the node to the premises by Coax. That is why the NODES are user limited!
The runs from the Node to the headend are multi-strand fiber, so they ARE extremely FAT!

reply to toby
not in my area unfortunately. to get the 3000/380 connection i get with roadrunner for an avg of $44 a month, id need to pay almost $90 a month for DSL. for $40 a month, i only get 512/128 on DSL. plus the fact that the dsl modems that sprint provides here have PITA to disable NAT on them is another reason i avoid DSL at all costs.

reply to test3
Nodes are user limited but breaking those nodes up is not difficult. Basically you can take a node and "cut" it in half. You would just pull off a strand of fiber and with a transmitter/receiver you now double capacity! You can keep breaking up nodes as much as needed.

Cool thing about cable is that it is really primed to deploy fiber to the home a lot easier than the telco can. The reason being that the fiber is already to the node. You could just start stringing fiber to the home instead of coax, right along the same cables. People talk an awful lot about telcos doing fiber to the home but realistically a cable company could do it, and fast. They just do not have to, yet.

reply to elias
the thin copper that dsl runs over has to many maintenance issues and is runned by an overcharging monoply... and only comanies that gain enough customers on the business side to be able to squaeak out a profit (covad) are still around... some (rcn) file for bankrupcy to keep all those cute expensive fiber and head end systmes paid for this bankrupt play money...
Fiber is the real deal in telecommunications and if you haven't started upgrading to it, you will be obsolete in 15 years because lots of the copper in place today is not going to be replaced with copper... For now it will only be replaced with fiber if the costs are equal or above fiber, but fiber will get dirt cheap in 5-10 years. Now sure whhere the costs are going to be, but we all pray it will be cheap, but good! All the content and speed you can eat for one low monthly price (say, $100, phone, video, videophone, music, movies, live events, software, games, etc etc etc) $100 a month (of course adjusted for inflation from todays price)
You just don't know how many people you'd get for the convenience of it all in one pipe/technology. And FCC, leave your friggin hands off with the taxes!!!

I agree with you there.

The whole cable shared bandwidth thing is a rumor of the past. Most cable companies have upgraded their infrastructure so much that its no longer an issue. For instance my cable company a few years back ran TONS of fiber around town. Our town is about 30 square miles, and currently the cable company has about 300 linear miles of fiber running around the town. Their current active capacity is about 655mbps on their sonet ring. However only about 1/3 of their available fiber is active so they could easily achieve about 2gbps on their network.

The phone company however doesn't even have fiber between their CO's in town. They're 100% copper running old fashined T-3 lines. The cable companies are definitely positioned to become the telco's of the future and put all the Bell's out of business.

reply to Derch
cable does crowd the node which means a hogging neighbour can take up bandwidth... but because of bandwidth caps it probably several hogging neighbors to take up the bandwidth.

This bottle neck is local to the node.

However there is still the possibility of bottlenecks for the co (distribution center) no matter what service is used. often the co can get crowded and, when that happens, if their service is broken up into nodes or not, it really doesn't matter. DSL can't guarantee speeds either.

reply to test3

reply to elias
they are downgraded because bandwidth is expensive or want to limit the number of user at 3.0/768 to 1.5/384
makes perfect sense!