broadband or dsl

[Joe]

Dear friends,

Some of you will know that I am using a dial-up connection to access the internet. I've not really had the pleasure of viewing any of the videos and audio clips presented on HWI main site. It's very upsetting to me that I can't enjoy these works. The time has come that I did something about it; perhaps some of you might be of some help to my queries.

1. DSL can be called broadband; cable internet is also broadband but less secure.
2. DSL speed depends on how far from the company one is.
3. Would 512kb DSL be quite sufficient to get the most out of the HWI main site and for sites requiring a broadband connection?

My options:

• My phone company has dial-up which I have now. They offer DSL Internet at 512kb for $35/mo. Their company office is 1/4 mi. away. I would rather like to keep my current e-mail addr.
  
  
• My digital cable TV provider offers broadband 256kb for $25/mo and 5Mb at $35/mo. I would have to get a new e-mail acct.
  

At this point I'd prefer to go with 512kb DSL. What do you reckon?

Thanks so much for assisting me in this.
Bless you,
Joe

[stevemacdonald]

If you have a choice between cable and DSL, go with cable. Cable is the fast lane while DSL is the slow lane (dial-up is the sidewalk).

[roger]

Hi Joe,

I respect Steve's comment because I'm sure he knows far more about it than I do. All I will say is that I have 512Kb DLS and I have never had a problem when viewing the HWI videos.

Good luck. Whatever your decision, I know you will be hugely impressed with the results compared to those you are used to.

Roger

[Martin]

Hi Joe
I also use a telephone line based DSL which works well for all Forum content. It's marketed as up to 8Mb speed but in reality is on average 300 - 400 Kbs download.

If you really want to plan for the long term future then cable might be a better bet for achieving high speed transmissions of 100Mb plus. The reason for this is that there is limit to the speed a copper telephone line can support whereas cable fibre optic has no limit (theoretically).

Best wishes
Martin

[jons]

My ISP Freedom2surf has an 8mb option. You are best going for the higher speeds, but websites vary in speed due to varying bandwidth.

Tell me Joe, do you have the option of migrating to a different ISP?

[Dave]

Hi Joe and everyone,

The cable versus copper debate is interesting but there is really no difference now in the technical capabilities of the two systems... you can get 'telephone' broadband upto 16 to 24 megabit/s now (if your telephone exchange has been ugraded and if you are close to it).

Broadband is generally defined as a 512 kilobit/s connection and 256 kilobit/s is technically "midband" not full broadband.[/b] The distinction is important because in reality you can never achieve the full connection speed on real downloads - technical factors and internet conditions will limit you to 85% or 90% of the connection speed at most. But... many "broadband" feeds on big websites use an actual 256 kilobit/s so if your connection is only 256, you won't be able to play them uninterrupted, you will get occasional stopstarts as your PC rebuffers. 256k is used by websites for their broadband streaming, instead of 512k, because they know standard 512k broadband connections will almost always be able to play a 256k feed smoothly (if the internet isn't too busy).

At HWI, we tend to push the higher quality broadband feeds up above 256 towards the 400 or 450 kbps area... allowing a margin for the 10% or 15% loss of speed that full broadband suffers from - and in most cases a 512k broadband connection will play them OK if internet conditions aren't too busy.

Obviously, a 256k connection will suffer from re-buffering and stop-start when playing 256k or 400k videos, if they are streaming "live" not downloadable. At HWI, we make them higher than 256k because the quality improvement is significant but we won't push them above 450k for the same reason that other sites stick with 256k... 512k is "standard broadband" and in reality you can get around 450 k out of it.

So my advice Joe is that if you are willing to pay the extra cost, go for the 512k product. However, before you sign up, find out if there are any limits on how much data you can download in a month because what some companies allow for the price is intended to cover normal web surfing and is not enough for downloading or playing lots of videos.

Good luck with it!

Cheers, Dave

PS I've just edited out a lot of the irrelevant technobabble i had in my original post

[jons]

ADSL2+ is becoming common place in some areas, but as I stressed before Website speeds vary.

[timj]

Hi Joe, I have Verizon DSL, downloading 2.5 to 3 meg a minute, but i can use the phone at the same time. I had a cable modem for a while, but it was not much faster, (download speed can be restricted at the source end). Verizon sometimes has a special price like $18 a month,if your in their area, there may be other service providers too!! Anyhow, if you go hi-speed you'll never go back to dialup......TimJ

[Joe]

jons said:

Tell me Joe, do you have the option of migrating to a different ISP?

I don't really want to, Jon. My current ISP is very good. It's a local company too.

Thanks to all of you for helping me out. Dave, I'll have to make enquiries about that monthly data limit.

Cheers all,
Joe

[postscript]

Joe, why are you changing? If it is SOLELY for HWI vids, I suggest you use an Internet café and save to disk (if they allow that). When in the States in Plymouth Mass, I used an Internet café connection on for my laptop and was astonished to gain 56Mb for the price of a coffee!

I use 2.2Mb telephone line (BT) broadband which is perfectly adequate for far more than HWI needs, although I did previously (months ago now) comment to Roger that I went through a period of considerable slowness but I believe that was a 'passing phase' as I have not experienced that difficulty for a long time.

Beyond quoting my personal direct experience I would not make further comment, as there are many here better technically equipped than I, other than to add I too am a quarter of mile from the exchange BUT I am not usually on during likely peak times so cannot comment upon effect of other users being also on.
Peter S.

[roger]

postscript said:

I suggest you use an Internet café and save to disk...

Peter S.

Mmm, I regret to say you may have slight difficulty with that because the videos on HWI's main site are not downloadable because of copyright limitations.

Roger

[Dave]

Hi everyone,

We are going to get into an awful mess unless we all use the same (standard) terminology here! Also, not everyone appreciates the important distinction between mb, mB, Mb, MB and the "K" equivalents. When you add in per minute and per second as well, it's impossible to compare.

Joe said (I think) that his current internet provider can offer a connection at 512 kilobits per second. The alternative cable provider offers a less expensive connection at 256 kilobits per second. Or a 16 times faster connection at the same price as the telephone Company - but it will not be 16 times faster in practice - and 512 kilobits/sec should play nearly all "broadband" streaming videos on the Internet.

Joe, if you don't mind paying the extra (or getting "standard broadband" instead of "superfast broadband") - and if there isn't a low daily or monthly data transfer limit - I'd go for the 512 connection which will let you keep your present email address. It will be made faster anyway eventually, probably at no increase in cost or even a cost reduction. Don't forget that the cable company may have a data transfer limit too and that (if true) may take the gloss off the benefits of a faster connection.

However... there is one other possibility. When I switched to Sky recently, my former ISP let me switch my broadband account with them to a dial-up "pay as you go" account (which I will only use as backup) and they have let me keep and continue to use my old email address. Find out if your present ISP will let you do the same!

Cheers, Dave

[toronado]

Monthly bandwidth limits aren't really very common in the US, although if you're using a ton of your bandwidth at once (BitTorrent is the usual suspect) they will throttle your speed down quite a bit.

[Joe]

Hello Peter,

I think the reason that I'm changing is very simple...time. Right now, my connection speed is 45,000 bps. I am online only about two hours in the evenings. Of that, over one hour is spent waiting for web pages to load. The fact remains that websites are becoming increasingly complex.

Thanks to you and everyone else for their suggestions.

Joe

[Joe]

Hi all,

As many of you know, I am upgrading my dial-up internet to DSL.

Their 512 kb/s service has been upgraded to 640 kb/s for the same price.

I don't have a network card on my PC. I was told to purchase one and install it myself before the 26th March when I'll get the equipment.

So, some good and bad points there.