DSL vs Cable

Interesting. Somewhat along these lines, I have had the same ISP since 1992, along with the same email address. I know I can get less expensive service, but I would not wish to change my email. Is there anyway, that someone knows of, where you can keep your same email as you can keep your cell number when you change providers?

Clubber: A lot of providers will allow you to keep using their email even after you have left them. I know I still have a AOL email address from way way back. I also know my dad has an MSN address that he got from his old job when they used MSN. So you may not have to do anything to keep your email.

I got my own domain name and use a web hosting company for my web site. The domain name costs about $7 a year and the web service is about $10 a month. I did this because I knew I would be moving and I was switching (dial-up) providers a lot. However, my email address is on every spam list so I have switched to gmail. Gmail checks my old email and kicks out the spam so that's really cool.

clubber: I am not an IP specialist but I don't see this as being a problem. I have been using the same ISP for 10 years and I have 2 email accounts with them that I never check because I don't use them. Probably a thousand junk mail messages waiting for me. I have 3 other accounts. One at Hotmail.com for my friends and family, One at Budweiser.com for TUSCL and one for my company business. and for You guys still using internet explorer change to Firefox. Your junk mail be almost eliminated.

shadowcat,

Amen to Firefox, and you can't beat the cost. I've been using it for years. I have just the one mail email and a hotmail for here. As you state, I rarely have spam bother me using Firefoz and their mail package, Thunderbird. I guess I need to contact my current ISP to see if I may keep the email.

FYI for others, go to mozilla.com to DL them.

I have a problem with the latest upgrades for Firefox. I don't know if it's because I have an older computer or not. It just won't run correctly and let me still connect to the net. I once used cable many years ago. I was disgusted with their service and have avoided them ever since. A couple of people at the cable company still remembered my name at least 2 years after I quit my service with them so apparently they knew me well too. Not that I was causing them any trouble or anything. If they fixed things right, I don't think I would have had to call them every 2 weeks for what seemed like 2 years.

Shadowcat, that sounds like a pretty good deal. I think I'm getting ripped off now paying more for less. However the local phone company here has a monopoly on the service for the area I live in.

I don't know the difference between DSL and cable. They both come into the house on a cable type of wiring system, as far as I can tell, so why don't we refer to them both with the word "cable"?

DSL uses phone lines. It has one big advantage that Shadowcat alluded to. All of the bandwidth is yours and yours alone. In addition the upload speed (something most people don't care much about) can be considerably faster. By far the best is the fiber optic hook up. One local cable company was doing that (Starpower) and bundling phone and internet with it. A few friends who had it said it was unbelievably fast, but they never reached my neighborhood. FIOS is a similar thing, but seems also to be stalled in legal and legislative battles about monopolies and what they can charge to lease the lines they install.

I use Comcast, and am pretty happy with it even though it is pretty much my only choice where I live. I've hit download speeds of well over 10Mb/s and uploads of 1.5Mb/s, but speed tests are a bit deceiving since they are always a short burst and often don't depend on sustained use, error rates, how fast your computer can retrieve or store files, etc., especially over a longer period of a large file. In practical terms the fastest I can download large files is about 1Mb/s, which is sufficient for my needs (I rent my porn). Still if FIOS came to my neighborhood I'd get it in a second.

What are the easiest ways that you guys use to check how fast your Internet connection really is? I have Comcast too and haven't really had that much of a problem with it. Of course, my older computer was dial-up (33.6) and that was the Dark Ages.

MisterGuy, just do a google search on "bandwidth speed test" and there will be a dozen or so to choose from. As mentioned above use it as a relative comparison, not as a speed you're likely to actually achieve when downloading files.

OK, looks like I'm getting somewhere around 4.0 Mps DL and 500 kps UL in the late evening here. I guess a "full T1" speed is ~1.54 Mps and a full T3 is 6.0+ Mps. Thanx for the info...

I did about seven of those tests and came up with everything from 1.3 to 7.6. What are they testing?

For some areas, the choice comes down to which company offers a better bundling deal, your phone company or your cable provider. For several years, DSL wasn't as widely available for homes as cable. It was more geared towards businesses, largely because its effective bandwidth was tied to one's proximity to the nearest main switch, or central office, which early on tended to be situated only in commercial districts. That still can rule out DSL in remote locations. Another consideration can be noise on the phone lines DSL shares in your house. The provider supplies you with filters that are supposed to take care of the noise, but your phones' sound quality can still be affected.

For email, I think it's best not to use an account supplied by your ISP, so that you can switch ISPs at any time (or in case your ISP goes out of business or changes names, like AT&T cable did) without affecting your email. This also has the advantage of allowing you to easily send and receive email from anywhere. Google's gmail is great for that, because you can easily configure it to work with any email program, and it doesn't cost anything to use without having an advertising message appended, like most other free email hosts require.

For checking bandwidth, I've always used 2wire.com, because it's so quick, simple and easy to remember. It includes a link telling what it's testing.

2wire.com just said I was runnin' at 192.0 Mps...lol...which they say is the speed at which their website comes up on the screen or something like that. The other day I got between 2.87-4.24 Mps DL and .345-1.29 Mps UL...I know it varies depending on the time of day, how many people are using the same pipe, where you test it from, etc., etc.