ADSL vs CABLE

[funnel2000]

I live in the Dudley area, and am stuck with the choice of cable or ADSL.

Here are the facts: -

CABLE - Cheaper, Available next month (hopefully). But shared with my street.
ADSL - Available July next year, faster????, more expensive.


My question is what are your views on each. Which should I go for?

Now before u go off typing away, here is the next twist.

I have a network of 4 pc’s at home that all require net access.

Ok now you can type away:-)


Thanks in advance

Funnel

[Gadget]

ADSL is also shared m8, so they're both on even footings there.

BT's current proposals for the ADSL rollout offer better upstream bandwidth (256kpbs compared to 128kbps), downstream is identical.

With regard to the home network, either can be shared, but cable (being an ethernet solution) is slightly more flexible in that regard compared to the USB presentation of ADSL.

I'd just get whatever comes first - it'll only be a 12month contract and either will be a huge improvement over whatever you have currently (unless it's an E1 ;))

[embattle]

The future is going to be xDSL but I would say get which ever one of the two comes first and also which ever one is cheaper.

[Dave]

Also Cable Modem technology is capped. If you look over at the U.S.A. their cable modems can do mbps, whereas ours only do 512kbps at the moment. I think in time when all areas are covered they will un-cap the Cable Modems. (Hopefully)

But also note xDSL technology is capable of way over 30MBPS. Yes you heard my right. 30 Mbps and more....

There are many MANY types of xDSL, ADSL is the most common and tested.

SO basically yeh go for the most cheapest!

[embattle]

I think the US ones are capped as well, just at a higher rate m8. One thing that is common to cable is a low upstream rate.

[Voodoo]

I was talking to one of my mates that work at bt and he was saying something about adsl being upgraded later on in the year. To about 2mbps insted of 500kps,

I didnt say wether this would cost joe public any more, but the bt man on the 0800 number told me adsl is upgraded without you paying extra as its bts stuff getting upgraded and not yours ... apparently

[TREB[Mama]]

Voodoo - what your friend meant is that the equipment BT give you is capable of downloading 8mbs per second but... at the BT end they cap it to a measily 512k :(
and BT certainly won't be giving any extra mpbps free anyway until the loop opens up next year in which case we should all have better alternatives anyway to BT.:)

[embattle]

When the whole loop opens expect a drop in service overall :E

[Sar]

Well I would go for cable as it's a month by month arrangement and I would seriously doubt that enough people would want broadband access that it would adversely affect you.

I have cable and it's great. :D

[Sar]

I mean to say that enough people in your street that is, not overall :E

[SchizoidMan]

Hey Sar/Dave: You're not implying anything about people in Dudley are you ;)

[Dave]

I have a friend in BT.

When ADSL has been introduced at the moment, BT will be rolling out plans for higher speed xDSL (mainly for business) at 2mbps and more.

It's just a matter of time.

[Dave]

Just remember one thing.....

ISDN / Cable Modem technology uses 'Digital'

POTS / ADSL Technology uses 'Analogue'

I ask you this..

So... in time as technology moves along.. what technology will last longer?

[SchizoidMan]

Originally posted by Dave
POTS / ADSL Technology uses 'Analogue'


Ummmm.....hang on....doesn't ASDL stand for Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line?

:confused:

[h0mer]

Huh? ADSL uses Analogue??? So what exactly does that D bit stand for? I beg to differ, but I think ADSL used digital technology.

:homer:


[Edited by h0mer on 10-08-2000 at 02:35 PM]

[Dave]

Well its a digital device attached to an analogue line.

ADSL is the 'alternative' technology to ISDN.

History:
A long time ago when phones were first invented, everything was analogue. The exchanges (owned by the post office at the time), the telephone, and the cabling to your house.
However as technology progressed all the exchanges were upgraded to digital as it can hold a lot more bandwidth and frequencies etc etc much better than analogue. But the cost of ripping out every analogue cable to every house in the UK is way way way way way too expensive. (Digital phone line is basically ISDN) So when BT took over the way they did it was to charge the customer to have their line upgraded to digital. It cost a lot in those days. But now this is commonly known as 'Getting an ISDN line installed' and is very very cheap in comparison.
But even still not even a quarter of the UK population can get/afford ISDN so a work around was thought up... ADSL.
ADSL uses existing copper/analogue lines to your house and just somehow compresses uses new technology.

So ADSL is just an alternative to digging up all the analogue lines and replacing them with digital.



NB:- The information above is beleived to be true. If you can prove me otherwise than please do so as I am always intersted :)

[SchizoidMan]

Surely all we're talking about here is copper versus fibre?

When you say "replacing them with digital", you mean Fibre?

BT's actually getting very naughty about this in the business environment. It used to be the case, that if you wanted ISDN30, they would always bring it in directly to your building by fibre. This is nice and clean, and unlikely to suffer signal degradation from interference.

Recently they've discovered they can get away with bringing this in on copper, as 30 voice channels are just a 2Mb pipe.

Then again, maybe they're just gearing down to the service level we'll get from Dodgy Telco when the loops unbundled, so they'll be competitive. You can be damn sure DT won't use fibre, if they can get away with existing copper.

[Dave]

Yeh basically I mean replacing Copper with Fibre. Soz I use analogue/digital :)

As for BT cheating with Copper ISDN30.. You pay for fibre to be installed. To the best of my knowledge it is mere impossible to run ISDN30 over copper at all. It HAS to be fibre for the higher audio quality.

I work in Videoconferencing so I deal with ISDN alot. And if ISDN went over copper at any stage this would dramitcally decrease the quality of the video/audio.

So if BT are doing this, they will get themselves into a lot of trouble.

[embattle]

ADSL is what I like to call, a modern ISDN :)

[SchizoidMan]

I can assure you they are.

I had lunch yesterday with a project manager with small niche telco/network co. who've done some work for me in the past. They're all ex-BT employees, and have this wonderful ability to by-pass all the BT systems & procedure that have been put into place over the years to slow every job down to it's maximum possible delivery date, and beyond. They just call up an friendly engineer in an exchange or whatever, and things just seem to happen. They got an ISDN30 installed for me in 9 working days from date of order. That's 3 years ago now, so that was very good then.

Anyway, he was saying that he's actaully seen these copper ISDN30 installations. They're also doing it on leased lines up to 2Mb as well.

[-shiva-]

just to clear this up...you can send a digital signal down anything you want....got 2 tin cans and a piece of string? If you wanted to you could send a digital signal down that...

[SchizoidMan]

Originally posted by -shiva-
just to clear this up...you can send a digital signal down anything you want....got 2 tin cans and a piece of string? If you wanted to you could send a digital signal down that...

Yes, but when you start sending enough data down a POTS copper pair, that you get near the theoretical 2Mb bandwidth limit, you can start getting interference and degradation.

Copper's fine for Basic Rate ISDN, but not really anything higher than that.

[-shiva-]

not disagreing with you schizoid, just saying digital don't mean squat....look at hi-fi....analogue is better (well subjective but most peeps reckon it is).

[embattle]

Originally posted by -shiva-
not disagreing with you schizoid, just saying digital don't mean squat....look at hi-fi....analogue is better (well subjective but most peeps reckon it is).

If you get a top notch Record player then you can beat any CD player :)

[funnel2000]

Thanx 4 all the comments. i think i am going to go for the cable. It seems the best way to go

Just a quick note for you on ISDN30. I work for BT, within the planning dept, and therfore know this......

"ISDN 20 is brought into customers premices in 2meg cables, that are.... wait for it.....COAX." :-P

Thanks
Anthony

P.S. Not hate mail please, i have nothing to do with the quality of service, just supply of servise proactivivly!!

[SchizoidMan]

Originally posted by funnel2000

"ISDN 20 is brought into customers premices in 2meg cables, that are.... wait for it.....COAX." :-P


Told ya they were going cheap. They used to blow fibre into directly into people's buildings. I know, I watched them do it in my building. I think it depends on the building to some extent. If there are going to be lots of tennants all signing up for ISDN30, they'll bring fibre in to feed everyone, but if it's a one-off install in a building they'll go cheap with copper(coax).

And also maybe depends on the locale. I'm in the heart of the City of London, so fibre's not hard to come by. Out in the 'burbs and rural locations it might be a different story.

[Edited by SchizoidMan on 11-08-2000 at 03:49 PM]

[Ford Scrote]

anyway - to go back to your original question

adsl vs cable..

depends what you want it for.

if you're wanting it for gaming - then personally for the next 12 months - i'd not recommend either - there are too many teething problems.

for the next 12 months i'd recommend anyone stick with ISDN for gaming - far more stable - no pl, no sharing.

i have p3 600e, v3 3k and asus TA - i ping at 30-50 on claranet servers and 40-60 on most other uk servers - that's quake 2

CS - ping between 40 and 100! but that's to with sh1t net code i'm told.

FS

King :pimp: