[TriLUG] Broadband Speeds

[Reginald Reed]

You absolutely can not talk about these technologies as flatly as you
have below.  There are so many different ways to implement both cable
and DSL and trust me, they are not all created equally.  Example:

Small DSL remote terminal with a T1 as the uplink servicing 10's of
subscribers is in no way as good as a customer connected directly to a
DSLAM in a CO that sits very close to the service provider's backbone or
fat pipe to the internet.  Both of these implementations are called DSL,
but the latter is vastly superior.

Same thing with cable.  The amount of fiber in your network makes a
world of difference when it comes to available bandwidth.  If the
network is deployed with hundreds or thousands of users connected to a
single fiber trunk (remember we're talking hybrid fiber coax - HFC).
This would limit the amount of both downstream and upstream bandwidth.
But with the same infrastructure and enough fiber (notice all the fiber
being laid *everywhere*?), you can simply install more fiber trunk
points to increase bandwidth.

The bottom line is even as a shared technology, do not discount the
ability of cable networking solutions to scale to incredibly high
speeds.

--Reggie

On Tuesday, October 07, 2003 11:16 AM, trilug-bounces at trilug.org <>
wrote:

> You have to remember that cable is shared bandwidth, compared to
> dedicated as with DSL.  Potential speeds of cable are significantly
> higher than that of DSL.  I have heard that DSL is more reliable but
> can't make an honest call about that.  Cable is like the days of
> dial-up when everyone got off work and tried to dial up and got a
> busy signal. Cable acts the same way, unless the infrastructure is
> made to withstand a lot of people surfing at the same time. 
> Depending on the cable provider depends on the speed decrease,
> hopefully the cable provider has planned for this and the consumer
> should notice little difference if any. --chris 
> 
> Stephen Hoffman wrote:
> 
>> Ok, so with respect to speed for TWC, what are the actual download
>> speeds for Cable?  I am at a consistant 160Kb/sec (advertised at
>> 1.5M), how does this compare to the other providers?  I have heard
>> stories of cable getting painfully slow around 5ish when everyone is
>> home and surfing, is that the case here?  How about Upload speed?
>> Bellsouth DSL gives me roughly 35Kb/s upload.  I am considering the
>> switch, but want to make sure I am getting as much bang for my buck
>> as possible. 
>> 
>> TIA.
>> Steve