🚀 go-pugleaf

"William Oertell" <oertell@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:39A9C048.E4D@pacbell.net...
>    As to the shared bandwidth issue: ADSL is not shared until you get
> onto the ATM pipe out of your central office.  Cable bandwidth is shared
> on your local node.  As far as I'm concerned this issue is moot, since
> all internet connections involved shared bandwidth somewhere along the
> connection.  I'd say it's all marketing hype, but if your local cable
> provider isn't quick enough to breakdown the local nodes into smaller
> ones as more users come online, it's not just marketing hype.

DSL fans at work har-har over my pathetic little shared-bandwidth cable
modem. They turn green when I tell them I'm getting 5 Mbps downloads (over
two modems) and static IPs. It costs me $50/month.

A friend of mine pays $69/month for 768 Kbps down and 128 Kbps up. His
"always on" circuit times out every few minutes (even in mid-download),
forcing him to do a PPPoE redial that sometimes doesn't connect. When he
gets on-line, his throughput to the Internet only approaches 768 Kbps
weekdays at 4 AM. At all other times, he hovers between 200 and 500 Kbps.
Meanwhile, I'm over here in the DSL ghetto (too far from the CO) and I get
consistent 2.5 Mbps downloads from external sites, any time of day.

I know not everybody has such success with cable modems. I went through
months of hell before it worked properly, but it was worth it. I longed for
DSL until friends and co-workers got it and shared their stories with me. To
the person, they're paying more money for, at best, 1/3rd of my throughput.

So they can have DSL. I'm quite happy limping along with my nasty little
shared-bandwidth toy.

Unless you've got telco fiber-to-the-curb, DSL's superiority over cable is a
myth. I guess that's why the vast majority of U.S. broadband users are on
cable.