Internet connection

[IceFire 0]

Hi all, I'm IceFire

I am going to be moving soon, and probably changing internet services.

Right now I have Comcast cable.  It gives me cable internet plus cable TV for about 19 a month.  That's a special deal.  It would go up later anyhow.

Also, I live in a huge apartment building, we even have our own reception desk on the ground floor, gym, swimming pool, dry cleaning service, convience store in our building.  The point is the place has MANY people.  A small community that may also be sharing the Cable internet.

I shal be moving into a normal sized apartment building with about 7 apartments in it.

I am thinking about having DSL cable for my next apartment.  The only reason is that the internet may be cheaper.

I want to know, how much faster/slower will it be?  

If you want to know how fast my internet is now, I'd say pretty fast.  

I don't know for sure.  If you need to know this information, please tell me how to find out so I can tell you.

Thanks

IceFire

[Mister Frag 0]

You can benchmark your Internet connection speed using a number of different sites, my favorite is DSLReports's Speed Test.

How your current cable connection compares is hard to tell, since you haven't told us what kind of speeds you are getting, and what type of DSL you expect to get. There are lots of different types (SDSL, ADSL, IDSL etc.), and speed varies with distance from the CO where the DSL connection of the CLEC terminates.

I prefer DSL over cable for two basic reasons: the upload speeds are generally better, and the throughput and ping times more predictable. It does tend to be more expensive, though.

With digital cable, the speed and latency (ping) vary throughout the day based on the usage patterns around you. With more people watching digital cable, the amount of bandwidth available decreases. During the day when most people are at work or in school, cable gets better performance than at night when people are watching TV. Unfortunatly, that's also when people like you and me want to play MP games.

[IceFire 0]

You mean what my connection speed is?

I don't know any of that.

All I know is it is cable internet, and pretty fast.

On Americas Army, my average ping is about 70-80.

Lows are about 30. Highs are about 150.

I can download most things pretty fast too. Not extremely fast, but you know, fast in a general sort of way.

[IceFire 0]

Basically my question is quite simple.

I want to get DSL instead of cable for the prime reason that it would probably be cheaper.

I just don't want my internet to be too slow.

[Mister Frag 0]

There are two important aspects of "speed" when talking about an Internet connection -- bandwidth and latency.

The bandwidth determines how much information you can transfer in a given time period; latency determines how quickly a single packet of data can get from one machine to another.

When downloading large files off the Internet or watching streaming video, bandwidth is most important. If you don't have a fat pipe, you'll be sitting there for hours waiting for that game demo to download, or your live video feed from Baghdad is more stop than go.

Assuming that there is enough bandwidth to send a packet (i.e. it's not stuck behind a bunch of other data waiting to be sent), latency is what causes lag and missed headshots when you try to snipe that enemy soldier. You press the fire button when you have the perfect aim, but it takes so long for the packet that says "IceFire just fired his M-21!" to reach the server that the enemy has moved on.

That being said, cable modems can have great bandwidth (especially down, but not always up), but they tend to have latency (pings) that are worse than DSL. Regular analog dial-up modems can have great (low) latency, but obviously have very limited bandwidth.

Bandwidth is really not much of a concern with the common forms of broadband, but latency can be an issue. As I mentioned earlier, I prefer DSL over cable because it generally has better latency.

[SpeedyDonkey 0]

Hi Since you seems to know alot about this kind of stuff i thought i could ask you about this damn ADSL problem, the thing is that my phone plugs are "parallel connected" (is that how its called ?) witch makes me loose connection to internet when i answer the phone. So basically i loose one of the best futures with ADSL.

I live in sweden and i know the phone plugs may be totally different. And i dont even know if the problem is called "parallel connected phone plugs" in english

Im tired of ending a nice MP game for some damn phone call. So can some donkey like me fix this kind of thing?

[HitmanFF 6]

Well, I have an ADSL connection as well. I have a so called splitter to separate telephone signals from the ADSL signal.

Should work for you as well. Your telco should be able to provide you with one.

[Tydium 0]

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Hi Since you seems to know alot about this kind of stuff i thought i could ask you about this damn ADSL problem, the thing is that my phone plugs are "parallel connected" (is that how its called ?) witch makes me loose connection to internet when i answer the phone. So basically i loose one of the best futures with ADSL.

I live in sweden and i know the phone plugs may be totally different. And i dont even know if the problem is called "parallel connected phone plugs" in english  

Im tired of ending a nice MP game for some damn phone call. So can some donkey like me fix this kind of thing?

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I presume that you have more than one phone plugs in your apartment and you have connected your ADSL box/card and your telephone into seperate plugs ? If this is the case you need an ADSL filter. If you have connected your DSL and telephone into same plug you can still use filter but in this case you could also use a slitter. You will also need one filter / telephone so keep this in mind if you have more than one telephone in your apartment.

Your local telephone / computer store probably sells these devices.

Hope this help

[SpeedyDonkey 0]

Okey Thank you for the replys guys! I assume the filter is a external thing? I guess i will have to call Telia (the company) again... Last time some... bitch... answering my call and started cursing at me