[NTLUG:Discuss] DSL vs. Cable modem

[Matt Midboe]

Joey_Berry at compusa.com wrote:
> 
> I do know that if you are wanting to register your IP with internic you will
> have to use DSL, cable does not offer this as an option. Up load on cable is
> capped to 128 I believe.

The high speed technoloes like xDSL, and cable modem don't specifically stop you
from having your own static IP address or place specific limits on send and
receive. This is a function of the policies that your ISP has in place. Some
ISPs charge for the static IP service, some actually give you a static IP but
don't tell you, and some have completely dynamic IP addresses. Also the transmit
and send speeds of the various technologies varies depending on how the ISP has
deployed it. Some ISPs have nice beefy 1.544 symmetric pipes, some have 128k
upload and 5Mb+ download, but it isn't tied directly to the technology they use.

I will conceed that the two technologies work differently and do place some
different limitations on the ISP though. The return signal from your house to
the ISP on a cable network is typically lower bandwidth because you have a lot
more ingress in the signal when it is going through the combiners on the way
back to the headend. So the signal has to have a lot more error correction
overhead in it. However, the cable is shielded and it travels longer distances
than the stuff xDSL uses. With ADSL you've got to be close to your phone
companies central office to insure the best signal, and even if you are an
optimal distance it's easy to wire the splitter wrong or to have other devices
invade the frequencies ADSL is trying to use. However being close to the central
office if you have a good ADSL connection it will have great connectivity.

Having used both cable modems and ADSL to get to the Internet I can say that if
you have a competent ISP both will be so much better than dial-up you won't
care. You should just try to get the best priced and most reliable service you
can get whether it's xDSL or cable modem.

Matt
matt at snsnet.net