Giving cable internet the old heave ho for DSL...

[K Frame]

I've had cable internet since late 1997.

It was great, but it's expensive, and lately I've had more and more problems that the cable company doesn't seem to be able to solve.

Well, this evening I finally got fed up and ordered DSL. Slower than cable (theoretically, since my connecting has been going from blazing fast to glacial whenever it feels like it), but it's coming with a modem free and a wireless router for $15. I just need to get the network adapter.

Plus, it's nearly $25 a month CHEAPER than the cable internet.

[Guest]

I did the same thing and haven't had any problems. Called the cable company first to see if they'd cut any deals. Nope. But after I changed, they called me to offer me specials on service.

[Sindawe]

What hardware is coming with the DSL Mike?  QWest local (Colorado) offered an ActionTec modem for DSL, but rather than rent I bought.  Lasted about a year, so it was break even price wise.  Replaced the ActionTec with a Zoom modem, and so far no issues.

A buddy has Cable at his place, and likes the speed so far.  But for me, having the dedicated pipe back to the ISP outweighs the speed he's getting.  I did look at cable when QWest was playing games with the service agreement last month, but since they backed off on the Hoseristic stipulations no reason to switch.

[client32]

I've had more and more problems that the cable company doesn't seem to be able to solve.

That was my problem with the cable company.  The support group would simply tell me that I had a virus and that is why I had such a crappy internet connection.  After switching and seeing that my "virus infected" computer work great with new broadband, my wife called to cancel the service.  That is the only time they even pretended to be helpful.

[Declaration Day]

I went from DSL to Cable.  

I had DSL for one month before it started to give me problems.  It would work fine for a few minutes, then it would slow down, slower than dial-up.  I'd restart the modem, and the cycle repeated.

I made several attempts at "live online customer service", which I now believe is nothing but a program with automated responses.

I called Customer service somewhere in Durka-Durkastan, and spent 45 minutes on the phone with a lady I could hardly understand, and who could hardly understand me.  Finally she had a revelation that the problem was not with their service, but at my house.  

She connected me to someone here in Michigan who speaks English.  We set up an appointment for a Thursday, and I made it clear that I would be home after 4PM.  They said that was no problem.  Thursday came, and they left three voicemails on my cell phone between noon and 12:30, "We're at your house, please call us back asap."

That was it.  

It's too bad, because I was paying $14.99 a month for DSL.  My cable internet is now $45 per month, but I have had no problems in the six months that I've had it.  It is also much faster.

I learned a good lesson, that low price doesn't always = good value.

[K Frame]

I've learned the correlary lesson.

High price and high speed doesn't mean squat.

Last night I did a series of speakeasy speed tests...

At one point I was downloading at nearly 2.5 meg., and uploading at 1.1 meg.

Less than 30 seconds later I did the test again.

Downloading a 186 k, uploading at 230 k.

During another test it started out at 1.8 meg down, and half way through the test dropped to 42 k.

That's the kind of psychotic crap I'm going through with cable, and they keep telling me there's no problem on their end.

[mtnbkr]

Probably because there isn't a problem on their end.  Cable is a shared media.  IOW, you, your neighbors, and possibly your entire neighborhood share the same "pipe".  10mbps don't mean squat if everyone's on that same 10meg pipe.  Your "slow" periods could be some kid downloading the latest album.  

Chris

[Felonious Monk/Fignozzle]

One time around 4 years ago, I met someone who was the most accomplished hacker (in a good way--not a 'cracker') I've ever met.  In passing, he mentioned a way you could do a registry hack or applet or which would allow you to have priority to suck down all the bandwidth in the neighborhood on a cable modem.

I no longer have contact with him, but no one since has ever been able to tell me what he was talking about.

Any chance one of you might be able to illuminate?

[BrokenPaw]

Mike, if you look closely in your cable broadband's Terms Of Service, you'll likely find a disclaimer that states that they make no guarantees of actual bandwidth performance.  That's for exactly the reason Chris states.

For those familiar with networking topology, cablemodem is roughly equivalent to a hubbed network segment, and DSL is equivalent to a switched network.  In a hubbed environment, there's N bits per second back to the gateway, that all of the computers on the segment share.  In an ideal situation, people's use of the network is not synchronized, so at any given time you have a pretty good chance of getting a large fraction of N.  But when Bob in accounting sends out an all-hands e-mail with a link to a cool video, and all 12 people go try to download it at once, suddenly you each only have N/12 bits.

With DSL, every single person has a guaranteed N bits per second to the router, and the only potential bottleneck is the pipe that goes from the router to the rest of the world.

The variations you're seeing are due to your neighbours and their porn-video habits.

-BP

[edited because my finger macros got ahead of me]

[BrokenPaw]

Fig, in the hypothetical, it's possible to (on some networks) set certain flags in the network packet headers (Quality of Service bits) that cause those packets to be given priority over others at the router.  It'd depend quite a lot on whether the router (a) understands QoS bits and (b) pays attention to them.  A smart bandwidth provider would shut that stuff off to prevent the sort of thing you're talking about.

OTOH, they might leave it on so that their techs could use it to get guaranteed bandwidth if they were at someone's house trying to troubleshoot something.  Or to demonstrated (using their laptop) how ReallyReallyFast a customer's new service is.

Wow, there's a thought...take a demo laptop with QoS priority on to a new installation, show off how fast it is, and if the customer ever complaines that service is slow, haul the laptop back out and show them, no, see, your connection is really blazing fast, we promise, have you scanned your PC for malware?

-BP, cynic

[K Frame]

1. No guarantee of speed. Duh. I know that.

2. Bandwith performance. I talked with the last guy that came out to address this problem. The hub serving my neighborhood is heavily UNDERutilized. Bandwidth sucking also doesn't even come close to explaining the speed excursions I've described above.

It also doesn't even come close to explaining the absolutely random frequency with which those speed fluctuations will hit (any time of the day, any day of the week, even when school and work is in session and I'm off), nor does it explain the rash of outages that accompany those fluctuations, OR the fact that when I call to report an outage the standard response is "We're showing all of the systems in your neighborhood operating properly."

I don't buy in the least that the "problem" is on my end.

Several years ago I was told by the same company that the problems I was having with my cable TV were MY problem, not the company's problem, until the 5th guy who came out to diagnose the problem actually went and did some diagnostics in the central service hup where things split off to the individual homes. The hub box was leaking that was causing the problems.

The only reason I got that fixed was because I kept calling and bitching until they sent out someone who wasn't a lazy brain dead chimp.

The big difference is that right now, I don't feel like going through another 3 months of this bullshit before they send out a tech who can actually think like a human being instead of just repeat the mantra "It's your problem, not ours."

Unlike with my cable TV at that time, I now have a completely viable alternative.

The neighbor to my left tells me that his DSL, in 2 years, has not gone down once and the speed has also remained constant.


Oh yeah, this is the same company that could never figure out why a friend of mine was never able to receive cable internet service at more than 115Kps, while neighbors througout the rest of the community were recieving at 10 times that.

It's also the same company that kept deleting another friend's account. No reason, they just kept disconnecting him.

Nah, I'm through. This is THEIR service problem.

[Harold Tuttle]

i have the opportunity to upgrade from my 800kps dsl to 15 mps Verizon FIOS for the same price of 35 bucks a month

i'm not sure other than the temptaion to violate the copyright of movie producers what i would do with that much speed

its not tlike surfing forums and looking at inline images of firearms takes that much bandwidth

[M14rick]

We are stuck with dial up for the forseeable future, not in town (no cable) and too far from the telephone office for DSL!  
But- I can shoot in the backyard all I want, and just have to walk out the door and into the woods to hunt...guess I won't move to town for faster internet!!!

[K Frame]

Rick,

You could always go satellite IP.

I think Mal, the moderator over on TFL, has it. You might want to ask him about it.

[M14rick]

thanks, Mike, I will check on it, but I think the cost is prohibitive...but we do have satellite tv

[IndianaDean]

I've had DSL for 2.5 years now and it works fine. Mine is pretty darn fast.

[mtnbkr]

thanks, Mike, I will check on it, but I think the cost is prohibitive...but we do have satellite tv

There is also the latency issue.  It's not a problem for email, web surfing, etc, but it is an issue for online gaming and time sensitive apps like VPN (though that's less an issue now than a few years ago).  It will certainly be faster than dialup in most cases.

Chris

[thebaldguy]

I gave up my Qwest DSL for Road Runner cable about a year ago. I had nothing but problems with Qwest since 2000. Until about two years ago we didn't have a choice. Cable is not only a lot faster but cheaper by two dollars a month. I have had no problems with Road Runner so far. Qwest had the worst help and service. Here in Minnesota, Qwest has had a long history of consumer complaints. They spend more money on commericals giving the appearance of good service rather than coming through. When I moved into this house years ago, I gave Qwest a three week notice for phone service so that it would be ready when I moved in. When moving in day came, there was no phone service and a two week wait. Evidently they "lost" my order! Many of my friends have given up on Qwest service here and just use their mobile phone now. I see no reason to give good money to a bad business.

Here's a good site for high speed internet reviews:  www.dslreports.com