DSL vs Cable

For several years our Cable TV provider has also been our ISP, and so we enjoyed the speedy internet access of Cable Modem Broadband, up until recently. Running online Speed Tests I was pretty happy with our morning download speed of 5Mb/s, but in the evening, when my neighbors started downloading porn or streaming music videos, that 5Mb/s could drop by up to 90%. The problem with Cable Modems is that your PC shares internet bandwidth not just with the other PCs in your house, but with that of your neighbors, so the more of you there are in your neighborhood using the same Cable Modem service at the same time, the slower that service becomes. Running Speed Tests in the evening would reveal not the lightning-fast 5Mb/s download speed of the AM, but a little old lady on her way to church slow rate of 500Kb/s.

When playing WoW I could have a 50ms latency in the morning (lower is better), and have over 1,000ms latency in the evening. I'd get horrible periods of lag where the action would pause for up to 10 seconds at a time, then everything would get crammed into one to two seconds. This wasn't too bad for my Hunter, Rogue and Druid, who would perform their basic Auto-Attack if left to their own devices (at least once combat was initiated), but for my Priest and Mage who require me to actually press buttons to cast their Spells, 10 seconds of lag can often spell Certain Death.

Cable Modems are great, if you're one of the few people in your neighborhood using them. Their 5Mb/s rate is three times faster than standard DSL, and almost twice as fast as premium DSL packages. Where DSL shines is in providing a dedicated pipeline for your Modem, and yours alone, and so this week we finally said goodbye to our Cable Modem service and subscribed to the inherently slower 1.5Mb/s DSL service of Yahoo! AT&T.

While the Cable Modem's 5Mb/s would be down to 3Mb/s (or slower) by the afternoon, and down to 500Kb/s (or 0.5Mb/s) in the evening, the 1.5Mb/s of DSL is 1.5Mb/s in the morning, afternoon, and evening. Last night I played WoW for a couple of hours, and except for a second or so of lag every now and then (which is not unusual), it was a very smooth experience. On occasion my latency was faster than it's ever been with the Cable Modem service (not sure how accurate it is, though) and at the worst of times it increased to just a little over 100+, which is nothing like the 1,000ms latency I'd experience with the Cable Modem when all of my neighbors would get online.

It's now that I recall AT&T's anti-Cable Modem ads, where neighbors were feuding over slow internet speeds, and I laughed that people would prefer the slower DSL over the much faster Cable Modem. Now I am one of those slower people, grateful for a dedicated, stable, reliable internet connection. Slow and steady wins the race :)

If I could afford it, I'd love to have the same connection as at my office.
Who needs Cable Modems when you can have Ludicrous Speed!