dks7
join:2004-05-31 | Poor Babies
Meh bunch of babies. I love competition, without it we'd still be stuck at 14.4k. |
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PhoenixDown
-- Wants FIOS
Premium
join:2003-06-08
Fresh Meadows, NY
clubs:   | I am not knocking the study since I dont know anything about it, or Maine for that matter, but if Cable is 3 meg down and dsl is barely 1 meg down - how is it faster?!?
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Final Fantasy |
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k_mumm
join:2001-06-14
Laramie, WY | Try 8 meg down. |
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wentlanc
You Can't Fix Dumb..
join:2003-07-30
Maineville, OH
| reply to PhoenixDown
Bacause with cable you have to share the bandwidth with your neighbors. With DSL, you have dedicated bandwidth to you. You could find that 2 of your 3 megs on your cable provider is unusable becaus of all of the broadcast, multicast, and normal unicast traffic. When you get a web page, everyone on the network has to get it and then subsequently drop it. That chews up bandwidth. The old rule of traditional unswitched ethernet was that 40% utilization is almost too much. Cable operates in exactly the same fashion.
puritan |
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Count Hogula3
John Forged Kerry
Premium
join:2004-07-10
Corona, CA
| reply to PhoenixDown
said by PhoenixDown  :
I am not knocking the study since I dont know anything about it, or Maine for that matter, but if Cable is 3 meg down and dsl is barely 1 meg down - how is it faster?!?
That's like saying if cable is 1 meg down and DSL 3 meg down, how is cable faster. The point is that they're offering DSL that is faster than cable.
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»www.scaryjohnkerry.com »media1.streamtoyou.com/rnc/080304v1.wmv |
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BIGMIKE
Premium
join:2002-06-07
Westminster, CA
| reply to dks7
Re: Technical limitations to qualifying for DSL
Technical limitations to qualifying for DSL
Unfortunately, ordering the service isn't the only obstacle between you and DSL. There are a few stumbling blocks, especially prevalent in the Clovis area, that prevent a number of people from qualifying.
First: DSL services can only run over straight copper phone lines with no digital conversions.
This means that an office location using a PBX phone system wouldn't qualify for DSL. A PBX system is digital, and thus prevents the DSL conversion from happening.
(The location might qualify if a straight analog phone line from Qwest was run to the location, but there are no promises that even that would qualify.)
Also, if fiber optic cable is used anywhere between your house and Qwest's central office, the line cannot be converted to DSL. Some newer housing areas have used fiber optic cable for the housing units. While this is great for voice, it means no DSL.
Second: You need to be within about 15,000 feet of a phone company's central office to get the service. In testing the circuits, Qwest has found that some people as far as 18,000 feet away from a central office can get DSL service.
The 15,000 foot limit is because of signal loss. Typically, if you are over 15,000 feet away from the central office serving your location, too much data will be lost to make the service usable.
Third: Even if you are within 15,000 feet, you still might not qualify because of line conditions and signal loss.
Certain devices and wiring may prevent a line that would otherwise qualify from doing so.
For example, Qwest commonly uses "pair gain" devices like SLCs. An SLC is like DSL in that it converts a line to use digital instead of analog. However, the increased capacity is then used to carry more phone lines instead of enhancing the one. Such areas in Clovis are North half of Colonial Park, Country Medows, Sandsen, and Mariposa Dr.
Qwest commonly uses these devices where they have run out of wires for new lines. (It costs a lot less to setup an SLC than it does to run more copper wires from the central office to the home/business.)
These devices can have a detrimental affect on modem connections and automatically disqualify you for DSL.
Also, there are some older devices used to boost voice quality that will disqualify a line.
Another big culprit is older phone wiring (either in the home or somewhere between the home and Qwest's central office). The older wiring causes increased signal loss and could disqualify a line that is within the distance limit otherwise.
Note: When you order DSL you should be aware that Qwest equates signal loss to distance. Thus if you order DSL, you may be told that you are too far away from the central office when you are not. This result typically means that there is something on the line that is causing excessive signal loss.
Why is distance important with DSL?
If you have heard even something about DSL, you will have heard about distance. Your phone lines normally terminate at a telco office, usually nearby. This distance, (the length of your line between your location and the telco office), is a very important factor in whether or not you can get DSL, and what speed you can get.
Here are some rules of thumb for distance ranges. Please be aware that especially with non Telco ADSL lines, distance limits for speeds can vary widely from company to company. There are cases where it is policy for "residential" DSL lines not to be offered as far out as functionally identical "business" products!
My neighbor has DSL, why don't I?
DSL is a technology where distance really matters.
Most Telcos limit ADSL lines to 15,000 ft from the CO (not as the crow flies, but how long the actual circuit is). If you're lucky, it may be 18,000 ft.
If your neighbor across the street has DSL and the phone company will not qualify you, there are several possible reasons why.
A. Your neighbor may have gotten lucky and he caught the loop before it went around the ENTIRE block.
B. The telco's records may be out of date.
C. Your telephone service could be served out of a different CO than your neighbor's (this is rare but is possible, especially in metropolitan areas where the COs are over-crowded).
In any case, if your neighbor has DSL, odds are you'll get it soon.
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ruscorp
I Never Stop Posting For You
Premium
join:2002-08-29
Earth
clubs: | reply to wentlanc
Re: Poor Babies
It's all shared at some point. |
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tiger72
SexaT duorP
Premium
join:2001-03-28
Saint Louis, MO
clubs: | reply to k_mumm
...if you live next door. 2.5 miles my ass. |
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BonezX
Basement Dweller
Premium
join:2004-04-13
Canada | reply to ruscorp
well what's 4500 of 5000, that's over 40% |
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gondola_fry
join:2004-06-29
Portland, ME
| reply to tiger72
Yes, 2.5 miles you can still get 3/768. Have you ever used this kind of service (Lucent Stinger DSLAMs)? Do you know anything about it? Again, I reiterate that cable has had too big of an influence on the perception of DSL. Yes, cable (depending on the provider) is really good, but so is this, and it costs less. May want to do a little research before you just dismiss the possibility based on your media-influenced opinions. |
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koveman
join:2002-01-23
Phoenix, AZ
| I've used dsl. I've been a subscriber and I've done tech support for other subscribers.
dsl SUCKS!
Could be bad service by the bells, but I've witnessed poor performance in at least three markets. My opinion is definitely "media-influenced" as in if your transmission media is a copper phone line and it's not a T1, then it sucks.
dsl makes me want to puke. |
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Skippy25
join:2000-09-13
Hazelwood, MO
| 100's of thousands of people can come here and make a stupid broad statement as you have for either service.
I have had DSL for a few years now and love it. I support people using both cable and DSL neither having any more or less issues then the other. When asked about broadband options I simply state you probably wont go wrong with either one so get the one that is cheaper and provides what you need. HOWEVER, DSL is generally cheaper for comparible speed.
Basically this will come down to the market and the company. Some markets will have great DSL and crap cable, where as others it may be the opposite way, and the remaining will have equal services where it won't matter which one you get. |
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MrBentor
join:2003-02-18
Seattle, WA
 ·Comcast
| reply to BIGMIKE
Re: Technical limitations to qualifying for DSL
I am a just shy of 19,000 feet from my CO. I did have regular DSL at 1500/128 but it kept dropping and stuff. It worked about 85% of the time. (Covad told the DSL reseller they thought I was 13,000 ft from the CO so they gave me service thinking it would be ok.) Well, after I started to have irregular problems I had them check i8t out and they "remeasured" and found I was way past 15,000 feet. How they got me on and stable was they raised my upstream to 400k and lowered my downstream to ~800k and locked the line in “Safe Mode.” Worked fine ever since, Only at to reboot the modem twice in the last 10 months or so. But I probably can never get those super speed lines – like 3m or 8m. Oh – well. |
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Freezone
join:2000-09-29
Southfield, MI
| reply to Skippy25
Re: Poor Babies
I have both dsl and cable and I can honestly say"THEY BOTH SUCK" There 
Oh and my dsl (I have 2) are 6.0 down and my cable is 3.3 down (On a good day).
But then if it rains too hard my dsl like to go down. So I chose to keep 3 providers and two technologies. This way I do not lose money when one hits the crapper. And even a T1 can not provide this type of internet uptime, becuase you only get 1 back bone where I have access to 3. |
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Freezone
join:2000-09-29
Southfield, MI | reply to ruscorp
Yes, but I am annoyed by all the traffic on my cable con when my dsl is silent. When the lights flash on my dsl modem chances are i know what is going on. My cable modem is constantly going. |
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ruscorp
I Never Stop Posting For You
Premium
join:2002-08-29
Earth
clubs:
| said by Freezone :
Yes, but I am annoyed by all the traffic on my cable con when my dsl is silent. When the lights flash on my dsl modem chances are i know what is going on. My cable modem is constantly going.
I've had both cable and dsl as well. I've always wondered why that was. |
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3SGTE
ST215W
Premium,MVM
join:2000-11-23
there
clubs: | Those are ARP requests.
Perfectly normal, and harmless.
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»www.fiberal.ca/ We need Arnie! |
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rolande
Certifiable
Premium,Mod
join:2002-05-24
Powell, OH
clubs:
Host:
Linksys
AT&T Midwest
| reply to ruscorp
said by ruscorp :
It's all shared at some point.
That IS the general idea of how networks operate. But, for those of you who are protocol challenged, a protocol like CMTS that is shared at layer 2 without any deterministic qualities like a TDM network makes a whole connection act like garbage when enough other stations on the segment are busy. Most DSL providers on the other hand are typically using ATM at layer 2 with either PPPoA or PPPoE for the client connectivity. This provides a whole different class of connection quality that is scalable and fully manageable by the providers. Cable providers don't have that flexibility on their networks and have little ability to control the congestion in their networks at the edge except to enforce harsh ToS agreements to limit upstream traffic. DSL's downfall is usually the physical limitations of the wire to the customer's premises. Luckily for the cable companies this is something they don't have to worry about. Everyone can connect just the same. They just have to try and control upstream bandwidth usage without a technical way to do it with the access protocol to avoid upstream congestion within their nodes.
Shared interfaces at aggregation points like 100Meg or Gig or OC-3, OC-12, OC-48 etc. are a complete world apart from the shared technology behind the DOCSIS standard. You are trying to compare shared service within an access technology versus shared service within a core network technology. So you can't even begin to compare these apples and oranges. Obviously speed of those technologies is a factor. But, aside from the speeds, the methods of traffic queueing that can occur on those types of interfaces, depending on the layer 2 protocol, is like comparing a Ferrari to a Pinto. When you aggregate thousands of broadband connections into upstream network connections that are shared in this manner, that is whole different kind of shared connection than cable uses.
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Ignorance is temporary...stupidity lasts forever! |
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3SGTE
ST215W
Premium,MVM
join:2000-11-23
there
clubs:
| Yes, that is the technical way of looking at things.
I look at the speed test archive here at dslr:
»/archive
Judge for yourself.
Theory vs execution!
(As was said earlier, either DSL or Cable can be done well, or done poorly.)
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»www.fiberal.ca/ We need Arnie! |
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ruscorp
I Never Stop Posting For You
Premium
join:2002-08-29
Earth
clubs:
| reply to 3SGTE
said by 3SGTE :
Those are ARP requests.
Perfectly normal, and harmless.
All the time and never happening with DSL? Are you sure? |
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