inet connection option

[Lord Chea 0]

First off, apologies to the mod's if this should be in off-topic, but here it is anyway.

Do those lucky b's with access think that xDSL is good for MP gaming, or is cable/ISDN as good/better?

Cheers

Chea

[Haywood Slap 1]

That all depends on your location. Neither cable or dsl is better in all locations. Cable tends to have better upload speeds, but in our area the cable companies cap the download speed so for a few bucks more I can actually do better with dsl. Of course, that is assuming you have a choice....

And avoid ISDN like the plague.

[suchey 0]

ISDN is a a no-go...its outdated, slow, and too expensive ofr what you get.

Cable is good, but has had a tendancy to be flakey in some areas. I had cable in my area and it rarely worked right. Sometimes it was almost as slow as dial up. Most cable connections cap their up rate which can be a hinderance as well. Cable is also notorious for packet loss which is a killer for on-line gaming. Cable quality varies from area to area so its a bit of a crap shoot (it may be great in your area). Your best bet is to talk to others using cable in your area...but make sure they are using the connection for gaming and not just surfing the web...many cable providers use a proxy cache which basically stores webpages for their customer to view and makes surfing the net 'seem' alot faster. Since cable is pretty cheap and broadband is in high demand, its not an uncommon practice for an ISP to oversell an area.

ADSL is a bit more expensive than cable, but offers more consistancy in the connection. Like cable, it also has capped uprates. ADSL is also dependant upon your geographic location as you have to be within range of the equipment (usually 2 or 3 miles from where the ISP equipment is located). When you buy DSL in any flavor, you are usually purchasing by speed package which in many cases is guaranteed to be available to you. In most cases, ADSL is priced to compete with cable.

SDSL is the best option if your willing to spend the extra money. It offers syncronous up and down speeds with the least ammount of packet loss, however, you are bound by the geographic location as mentioned above, but you will find that in most cases it will provide the most consistantly low pings and speed available. The price for this type of service is well beyond the cable and ADSL range and varies anywhere from $70-$150 per month depending on the bandwidth you purchase. Consider how much time you spend gaming...it may well be worth the extra cash if you have made this your hobby. If you play quite a bit, the speed and dependability well offset the cost...but its certainly not the way to go for everyone.

Sattelite connections- In most cases these connections only transmit in one direction (down) and use a dial up connection for the up load. It is also quite flakey at this point and certainly not anything you want to be playing on-line games with. I have read reports of interference being a major problem with this type of connection. Maybe in the future this will be something of a competitor, but its no match for land lines at the moment.

In all of these cases, your milage may vary...but this may help you to get a better handle on some of the ups and downs of each area as a whole. Hope it helps a little.

[RN Malboeuf 12]

around here DSL is flaky and is cheaper by 3 bucks, it runs at 2 mbs down and 0.2 up if your lucky and cable is not really shared out here and it's 3 mbs down and 0.6 mbs up which is faster thena TI for dloads and only 1/3 the speed for uploads as a T1

[BigQEd 0]

DSL is the best overall (other than a TRUE T1, T3 or OC3)... it is now outpacing cable 2:1 in growth due to it's non-shared network structure. Basically you get what you pay for...

[rekrul 7]

The xDSL technology has nothing to do with packetloss tho. As in, ADSL doesn't have more PL than SDSL.

[LBGS_Stewart 0]

But if you live like in a place where i live, unforintly you cant have eather all i can have is dial up and i get connected at 28.8K with a transfer rate of about 3K