[LaW]Maverick February 20, 2007 Share [LaW]Maverick Member February 20, 2007 I'm trying to decide whether to go Time Warner Cable for my high-speed when I move or whether or not to with AT&T DSL. For $34.99 per month, I can supposedly get dl speeds of up to 6 mbps. Sounds pretty sweet and FAST. I'm just wondering if you guys had any experience with AT&T DSL, and if you have, what your experience has been. Anyone? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akaM2 February 20, 2007 Share akaM2 Member February 20, 2007 I have a biased vote for TWC <------------3000 post club! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anonymo February 20, 2007 Share anonymo Member February 20, 2007 I have a biased vote for TWC <------------3000 post club! noob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ash February 20, 2007 Share Guest ash Guests February 20, 2007 (edited) I've had AT&T's DSL service since back when Ameritech was still around. They're really good but the service can be spotty depending on where you live at and how old/bad your lines are. AT&T also has special low rate deals that you can only get when signing up for a yearly contract. Currently, my DSL bill is $17/MO for 3Mbps down/416kbps up. Read or post here for more info: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/ilec,am Edited February 20, 2007 by ash Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boiler February 20, 2007 Share boiler Member February 20, 2007 I have zero complaints with cable internet, very fast and reliable. It is a little bit more expensive, but I like it for myself. Little less spotty than DSL imo. btw, my service is with comcast, but i'm guessing it's not much different from twc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[LaW]Maverick February 20, 2007 Author Share [LaW]Maverick Member February 20, 2007 well, I've had TWC before, and I was happy with it. The speeds were fast, and the connection was ALWAYS solid and reliable. It didn't go out...ever... However, the most expensive AT&T service is $10/mo cheaper than TWC...so...it's a tough call. If I sign up with DSL and I find out I'm too far from the switch, I've got no juice, and I poo-outta-luck In other words, I have a bias toward cable, but I'd be willing to try AT&T, I just don't want to get myself screwed....know what I'm sayin'? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boiler February 20, 2007 Share boiler Member February 20, 2007 yeah, thats kind of the dilemma for anyone making this decision. My office uses the AT&T DSL service, and I have had to make service calls on four different occasions in the last eight months (one event took over two days to solve) to fix service outages/problems, whereas in the same time zero calls to comcast. I think cable is supposed to be a little faster, so its up to you if you think the extra $$$ will be worth it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dj_ February 20, 2007 Share dj_ Member February 20, 2007 Mav, I've used just about every type of internet connection except satelite (T1, dial, ISDN, DSL, Cable). Of the two you're looking at, I'd rather have DSL *IF* the stars and planets are aligned. DSL is a dedicated link from you to the CO (Central Office, aka, the network hub/closet/building that the company aggregates traffic into for a given area) and you only hit congestion from the CO onward. Cable is more of a loop in that everyone shares the cable loop from the CO back to the CO, so the more people in a given area, aka on a given loop, contributes to a slow degradation of your expected throughput. So, while you *COULD* get 6 to 8 mbps downloads on cable, you might only realize 1 or 2 mpbs depending on how many people are using the service at that moment. COs tend to have a much larger capacity to handle congestion. When all is said and done, it's about circuit and capacity allocation. That said, the BEST service I've had was cable, hands down. Both with Adelphia (in Northern VA they weren't bad at all, good local office techs) and currently with Comcast (so far, 5 months and only a couple of "upgrade-related" outages). The only drawback is that when I had Verizion DSL, they didn't filter incoming traffic, so I was able to run whatever I wanted. on Adelphia cable service, they blocked incoming ports like HTTP, FTP, HTTPS, etc. Those things were reserved for "business" accounts with bigger pricetags. As for the worry that DSL won't be good for you, before they do the final installation, they *SHOULD* already do a wire distance test and know how many wire feet from the CO to your location, give or take a yard and every DSL agreement I've seen included a 15 or 30 days window for you to escape because the service did not perform as advertised. Did you do use this site AT&T DSL Page to verify service? -dj Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[LaW]Maverick February 20, 2007 Author Share [LaW]Maverick Member February 20, 2007 Thanks a lot DJ, that's a lot of the kind of info I was looking for... See, we have Verizon DSL here at the office, we're VERY close to the CO, but the connection still sucks to the millionth degree...we get 40kb/s downloads and 'bout 10 up. It's atrocious. That's why I'm so leery of DSL. That being said, I will talk to AT&T and see if they have a trial period that I can check out. I should know within a few days whether or not it's worth keeping. That being said, I never had to call TWC to say "why's my cable out" because it never was. The Verizon DSL here at work has been down twice since I've been here (8 months or so) and once it took a day and a half to fix. Not cool at all.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lunk February 21, 2007 Share Lunk Member February 21, 2007 When I had Roadrunner thru TWC, it was down quite a bit. Got to be pretty frustrating. I've had AT&T DSL for a couple of years now. The only time I've lost service is when we had a power outage(very rare). BTW you can sign up for dsl without a service contract but you will pay about $10 more a month for it. Just a thought if you want to try before you buy type deal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShadowDog February 21, 2007 Share ShadowDog Member February 21, 2007 honestly go with TWC, i have it, and though its not the best, its the best service around, no DSL or other cable compares. ONe more thing.. dj said his best service was with Adelphia... i completely agree Side Note: Adelpha = TWC now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anonymo February 21, 2007 Share anonymo Member February 21, 2007 Currently, my DSL bill is $17/MO for 3Mbps down/416kbps up. Where's g33k? GEEK! You can afford this! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tyranus February 21, 2007 Share Tyranus Member February 21, 2007 Have had cable for over a year not one problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
00b3rN00b February 22, 2007 Share 00b3rN00b Member February 22, 2007 In my town, we have the option of AT&T DSL or Charter Cable. I used to have cable internet and it was significantly slower and considerably more expensive, but it all depends on your area. I currently have the professional package with AT&T DSL (6 mbps), which is nice. I had the platinum package with cable (supposedly 5 mbps), but never saw anything close to that speed, and there were occasional outages. I have had the DSL for 6 months and have not had a single outage yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anonymo February 22, 2007 Share anonymo Member February 22, 2007 In my town, we have the option of AT&T DSL or Charter Cable. I used to have cable internet and it was significantly slower and considerably more expensive, but it all depends on your area. I currently have the professional package with AT&T DSL (6 mbps), which is nice. I had the platinum package with cable (supposedly 5 mbps), but never saw anything close to that speed, and there were occasional outages. I have had the DSL for 6 months and have not had a single outage yet. TEH OOB3R LIVES!!!! We missed you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boiler February 22, 2007 Share boiler Member February 22, 2007 OK, I officially hate AT&T DSL. Came into work today at 8am, everything fine. 9:00am, internet's down. 9-9:30 test everything I can to make sure it's AT&T's problem and not mine. 9:30 - 10:20 on hold to customer service after going through 8 different menus and voice commands to get the privilege to wait on hold to talk to a live person 10:20-11:30 on phone with heavily accented support guy who has me jump through several hoops I've already tried, then tells me I need to be doing the tests on an XP machine, not my laptop (vista business). I get another laptop, same result. 11:30 - 12:00 gets me in touch with a line maintenance guy who tells me there have been outages in the city and I could be part of it. Does tests on his end, says everything is normal. Tells me the router they gave me is a crap brand. Offers to send tech out sometime today. I hang up. 12:15pm Internet kicks back on again and works 2:00pm tech shows up, I tell him everything is working and I tested it directly on my laptop to make sure it was working. He plugs his laptop in and sees for himself, then leaves and is planning on billing us for the service visit!!! I want to shoot that electronic woman who talked to me for 50 minutes while I was on hold. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGeek February 22, 2007 Share TheGeek Member February 22, 2007 Currently, my DSL bill is $17/MO for 3Mbps down/416kbps up. Where's g33k? GEEK! You can afford this! WOW Is that good for gaming?! 426 upload is not good at all! Right now I am sitting at 1.1 down, and 850 up. That sounds like a satellite connection to me! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ash February 22, 2007 Share Guest ash Guests February 22, 2007 OK, I officially hate AT&T DSL. Came into work today at 8am, everything fine. 9:00am, internet's down. 9-9:30 test everything I can to make sure it's AT&T's problem and not mine. 9:30 - 10:20 on hold to customer service after going through 8 different menus and voice commands to get the privilege to wait on hold to talk to a live person 10:20-11:30 on phone with heavily accented support guy who has me jump through several hoops I've already tried, then tells me I need to be doing the tests on an XP machine, not my laptop (vista business). I get another laptop, same result. 11:30 - 12:00 gets me in touch with a line maintenance guy who tells me there have been outages in the city and I could be part of it. Does tests on his end, says everything is normal. Tells me the router they gave me is a crap brand. Offers to send tech out sometime today. I hang up. 12:15pm Internet kicks back on again and works 2:00pm tech shows up, I tell him everything is working and I tested it directly on my laptop to make sure it was working. He plugs his laptop in and sees for himself, then leaves and is planning on billing us for the service visit!!! I want to shoot that electronic woman who talked to me for 50 minutes while I was on hold. Check out the SBCDirect forums at DSLreports: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/sbcdirect They're MUCH better than the lousy outsourced tech support. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dj_ February 23, 2007 Share dj_ Member February 23, 2007 You're very welcome Mav. So here's a bit more to think about for DSL. Both Cable and DSL work by sending additional signals along with what they normally had. The difference is that they're using frequencies to carry the signal in different ranges than the normal service (either TV or voice, obvioiusly). Now, cable uses coaxial, which is typically a thicker and more consistent medium than twisted copper that your typical phone uses. Now, by consistent, I mean that it's purity of copper in the wire tends to be better than a typical twisted pair for a house. Why? Because cable has only existed since the early 80s (so about 25 to 30 years) while copper phone wire has existed for over a century. Earlier/older phone installations will have worse copper purity (and therefore be really REALLY bad for DSL). The better your wiring, the better the signal (and less resistance == less noise). Also, with DSL, it MUST have good copper wiring not just in your house/office/etc., but also the entire route to the CO. Any step in the way with a shoddy wiring job, old copper wire, bad repeaters, etc., can cause DSL to suffer something awful. Now, cable has it's issues too, most of which I mentioned previously. Just be sure then if you go with cable, then when they do the installation, they make sure that the spitter is internet-service capable. My first installation of cable was horrible because they had a splitter in the outside box (the part that they cable company doesn't want you poking around in) was from 1993, when the service was first installed and well before cable did internet connectivity. Once they switched the splitter to one with a specific-for-internet split, my connectivity was rock solid until I moved 5 years later. Happy internet service hunting! -dj Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fatty February 23, 2007 Share Fatty GC Founder February 23, 2007 I did cable -> DLS -> and back to cable. While I was told that my "consistant speeds" in DSL were better for gaming, I was completely unsatisfied with top speeds and overall performance. That's my personal experience. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
appalachian_fox February 23, 2007 Share appalachian_fox Member February 23, 2007 Man, if only my cable were that reliable. I had DSL for two years, and it was only down once for a few hours in all the times I tried it. It had amazing reliability, low ping to pretty much any domestic location and great bandwidth all the time. That of course might be due to the fact that I'm in a relatively new house and it's close to the CO the way the pipe runs. But the phone company is one of those "rural carriers" and they charged an arm and a leg. I switched to cable, and that was a huge mistake: Frequent service outages, service "blinks", occasional horrible latency issues and varying bandwidth. Now their customer service has always been very responsive to any issues I have, and I've always gotten prorated credits whenever I have called, but that's no excuse for being on the phone several times to the tune of an hour or two every other month. I guess YMMV. I'm also with Charter Communications, FWIW. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stutters February 23, 2007 Share stutters GC Alumni February 23, 2007 is it true that, on average, cable tends to have a lower latency than DSL? (all other things equal) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[LaW]Maverick February 23, 2007 Author Share [LaW]Maverick Member February 23, 2007 Hrm...well, thanks again guys... Now I'm leaning more toward cable because I've realized that DSL will cost me the same amount for month. I'm also a little wary of the connections in the area. The apartments I'm moving into are fairly new (9 or 10 years old) so they SHOULD have decent wiring, BUT all of the other complexes and buildings around the area are fairly old, which means if it has to go through a few repeaters, then it will likely be going through some very old lines. That being said, I didn't see an AT&T office anywhere in the area which makes me wonder how far away I am from the CO. The reason I say DSL costs the same is that I wasn't planning on having an active phone line for my apt. I'm just going to use a cell phone. Now I'm fairly certain that I need an active phone line for DSL, correct? If that's the case than DSL may even be a hair more expensive than good ol' Road Runner. We'll see... I appreciate all the advice...I love the fact that I can hop on to GC and get all kinds of real-life experiences from people on just 'bout any technical issue Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dj_ February 23, 2007 Share dj_ Member February 23, 2007 Mav, Correct, you need an active phone line (not a VoIP through a cable system) to get DSL. No copper wire to the house, no DSL. SJ, No. Cable vs DSL, all things being equal (that is, distance miles, number of hops, speed of devices doing the routing, only 1 user using it, etc.) should be the same latency. The technologies are not that far out of sync in raw ability to pass packets. -dj Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mozzarella February 23, 2007 Share Mozzarella Member February 23, 2007 (edited) Mav, I signed up for Dsl for a week to give it a shot. I had a significant increased latency for gaming. It was fine with downloads, but my gaming really suffered. I would suggest sticking with cable. Mozz Edited February 23, 2007 by Mozzarella Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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