Study: Cable speeds outpace DSL

CED Magazine ^ | 4/23/03 | Jeff Baumgartner

[Pro-Bush]

Study: Cable speeds outpace DSL

Jeff Baumgartner, CED

Consumers are generally willing to pay more for a faster connection, but the speeds provided by high-speed cable and DSL providers remain rather inconsistent, comScore Networks revealed in a new study that details broadband usage and quality of service.

The research firm found that the average cable modem connection was more than 50 percent faster than the average residential DSL connection.

Citing observed network speeds in February 2003, cable averaged 708 kbps, led by Cablevision Systems at 800 kbps and followed by Comcast Corp. (794 kbps), Cox Communications (688 kbps) and Adelphia Communications (575 kbps).

Residential DSL averaged just 467 kbps, led by ATT WorldNet's 762 kbps. SBC was second with a 584 kbps average, followed by DSL reseller Earthlink Inc. (369 kbps) and Qwest (240 kbps).

If preference trends hold up, cable's better average speeds will continue to pay dividends, comScore said.

Broadband competition "has created intense pricing pressure, so performance metrics such as connection speed are likely to become an increasingly important factor, both for consumers selecting a broadband provider and as a part of providers' sales and marketing efforts," said comScore Networks Vice President of Telecommunications Solutions

[Pro-Bush]

The research firm found that the average cable modem connection was more than 50 percent faster than the average residential DSL connection.

[PFKEY]

Shhh...

Cable is slow and you have to share your bandwidth, plus there is the security issues related to this sharing.

[Pro-Bush]

Hmm. Sensitive subject. I read the threads from last night.

[PFKEY]

Threads from last night?

I must have missed something. Who is being sensitive and about what?

[Pro-Bush]

Cable vs. DSL

[teletech]

I haven't met a DSL yet my cable couldn't beat!

[LPStar]

I'd like to know if this firm is paid by anyone. This sort of study can be rigged. If you're the only cable customer in the group that shares the connection, it's fabulous. Otherwise, you're going to have lots of performance up and downs. But DSL is more scalable, in my opinion.

[BlessingInDisguise]

DSL is generally pretty crappy, expensive, troublesome and unstable compared to cable connections of the same speed.

However DSL has an edge on cable when it come to UPLOAD speeds most of the time.

Give me cable anyday....

[BlessingInDisguise]

I've payed $29.99 monthly for cable connection in my home town that is at times more than 100X faster download than DSL connection of the same price.

SERIOUSLY!

[AmericaUnited]

I haven't met a DSL yet my cable couldn't beat!

This post was deposited to you via DSL at 1208kbps. You are beating that? I average that speed ALL-THE-TIME.

[KneelBeforeZod]

cable has always been faster than DSL. the tired "shared bandwith" argument never mentions distance issues with DSL

[teletech]

This post was deposited to you via DSL at 1208kbps. You are beating that? I average that speed ALL-THE-TIME.

Goody!

[KneelBeforeZod]

I wonder if you can download a 20 meg file in 1 second on DSL off their backbone.

nope, you can't.

this was a good test for whiners who said their DSL was faster.

of course with all the hops and traffic on the internet, you'd never get anything close doing real world surfing

[Green Knight]

Oh yeah? Well my 56K WebTV is beating you ALL!

[PFKEY]

My experience with DSL was fairly disappointing. Other than the usual headaches associated with installation/provisioning and whatnot, once installed I got around 700K.

With cable I get over 2000K. After several months of service I had my first outage about two weekends ago.

In talking with the support folks I was told that on my "trunk" there were approx 160 customers.

Now I don't know if that is many or few but the speeds are wonderful.

[Pro-Bush]

But DSL is more scalable, in my opinionHelp me understand how 2 twisted copper wires are more scalable.

[lotus]

I'm on satellite and just ran this test at the bandwidthplace:

1.1 megabits per second
Your raw speed was 1127168.52 bits per second which is the same as:
Communications

1.1 megabits per second How communication devices are rated. Kilo means 1,000 and mega means 1,000,000. Examples include 56k modem and 10Mbit Ethernet

Storage

137.6 kilobytes per second The way data is measured on your hard drive and how file sharing and FTP programs measure transfer speeds. Kilo is 1,024 and mega is 1,048,576.

1MB file download

7.4 seconds

The time it would take you to download a 1 megabyte file at this speed.

Rating
Compared to all connection types worldwide, yours is fantastic

[Arthalion]

The biggest advantage to DSL, in my opinion, is that it tends to be far less restricted than cable. I run a web server, DNS server, and email server on my 1100KBS average DSL line, and SBC KNOWS about it. With DSL, the prevailing attitude in the industry seems to be that you're buying bandwidth (much like a T1), and what you do with it is your business. My SBC terms of use explicitly state that I can hook up as many services and computers to my line as I want, as long as I'm not reselling the service.

Cable is a much different story. Most cable providers TOS limit you to one computer (enforcement is a different issue), prohibit servers, and many block incoming connections on the ports you're most likely to use for running your own public systems. Heck, I know a guy who got his Comcast service shut down for the "crime" of running a personal web site on his computer.

You also have greater security concerns on cable. Cable is, essentially, a big local network with an Internet gateway. Although security has improved in many areas, it is still stupidly easy for people on the same network to hack your computer. With DSL, at least you have the security of being on your own private, dedicated virtual circuit.

Cable may be a little faster, but I'll keep my DSL.

[Fledermaus]

My cable is faster than DSL...and we can't get DSL in our area anyway.

And it's not that expensive. I keep hearing the cost is high from Juno or Earthlink dialup users that crow about a $10 a month fee! Great if you like waiting and disconnects and slow page loads.

I was paying $25 for Compuserve and now pay $40 for Comcast. I then turned off my second phone line and saved $30 a month. So I'm paying less overall for better speed and service.

If the cable modem goes down for any reason, which it has for a few days once in 3 years, I have a few free AOL dial up CD's I get in the mail and use them for backup if I'm deparate...like when the cable went down for 2 days during the war and I was addicted to the LIVE Thread! :-)

[Fledermaus]

I have firewall protection with my cable and my Comcast hasn't stopped me from using a Yahoo based personal website.

I'd use the free one I get with Comcast, but it's raw and requires you know html language to use. Yahoo is cheap and let's me pick and choose templates. I'm good with computers as long as I don't have to tell them what to do.

That's what programs are for and I'm not interested or even care to know all that SBC, DNS stuff.

I just want to surf the internet fast. Works for me.

[PFKEY]

I had DSL with Eartlink and it was $49/mo. for 1.5k down but never got better than say 790k. Then my service was cancelled because of Alltel buying out Verizion in my area.

I looked into other DSL offereing in my area because I was not impressed with the cable offering or so I thought. The best prices I could find for a DSL replacement service ran around the the same as Earthlink but half the download speed. Or around $70 if I wanted the 1.5k potential that I had previously had.

So, I switched to cable. As it turned out being a digital cable subscriber my price was reduced from $44 to $34. Speeds as mentioned above are considerably faster. Only downside is their NNTP offering and servers stink.

[Michael121]

If you have cable and want more of their speed download

TCPOptimizer.exe it is a cable modem tweak. I download 50 megs in 1 min. hehehehe

I can get speeds, from a 700kb /sec supposed connection cable, of 2500kb /sec - 3000kb /sec.

Tweak, tweak, tweak. Cable companies lock out the bandwidth like a governor on your car, all ya gotta do is find the hold down nut on the cable and ya get more gas. Cable is so much faster. Now as to the next since they have been laying lines for years...... FIBER OPTICS... gigibytes in seconds but who will be the first company to finally hook it up?

[Steel and Fire and Stone]

Sensitive subject ...oh yeah!

Does anyone remember how the Cable companies used to resemble something between gangsters and a third-world, socialist country, government agency? When you tried to call for service, you'd wait for hours, and then get hung up on. If you arrived in person to turn in cable hardware (as when you got so pissed off you said "to heck with the SOB's; give me my rabbit ears.."), you could wait in line 2-3 hours!??

Well, folks, the only thing that's changed is the technology. We all have a variety of competitive sources of TV programming (i.e. satallite, cable, etc.), so the Cable companies had to clean up their service act a bit. But MOST AMERICAN's still have only one choice for broadband service, and that's by the design of both the providers and certain political entities in government. The only reason broadband technology is bottlenecked, and telecom hardware companies like CISCO are going under, is that the supply has been "regulated" to guarantee obscene, monopolistic profits to the broadband ISP's, along with the least service possible to the customer.

In practical terms, that means that Cox Cable will squeeze as many "clients" or workstation connections onto a single router-trunk as possible, by limiting uplink (which is the choke point for most of us) to < 256 kbps, and download to < 650 kbps. By the way, those numbers drop all the time. Why buy more hardware to deliver more service, when you KNOW your customer's other choice is 56K, or DSL at twice the cost, plus a small fortune for hookup. When I first contracted for cable internet service, I had 1500 kbps up and down, consistently, and with "clean" transmission. Now there are all sorts of choke points in the system. On occasion, I've been able to track down problems and resolve them, but by the time I've talked to Tier I, Tier II, and eventually Tier III support, convinced them that I'm a IT professional, and know what the heck I'm talking about, I've wasted 4-5 hours. Then, two weeks later, they make some more tuning adjustments to squeeze a few more connections out of too few servers and comm. lines, fail to monitor their changes, and my service degrades again.

When I call to complain to customer service, they essentially say that I'm a "user with special commercial needs..", that they will be glad to hook me up to their commercial folks who'll change me $2500 per month for CONSISTENT service.

This situation will continue until the politicians making Telecommunications policy decide that the bribe money these Broadband companies are paying them just isn't worth the political risk of ticking off TWO OUT OF EVERY THREE constituents.

The reason this issue hasn't boiled over is because people naturally assume the problem is with their PC, or their modem, or their Internet Router, or some other mistake THEY'RE making, and just decide they have to live with the problem.

If the government took the "governor" off the business, there'd be 10,000 new providers, cable and DSL prices would drop to $3.50 a month (oh..$15.50 after TAXES!!), and performance would improve 100x.

Next time you talk to your local, smiling politician, given him an ear full!

FReegards, SFS

[Citizen of the Savage Nation]

I've had both. Cable is much faster, and more reliable, but that's just me. Plus, I got cable installed under a week when DSL took a month.

Not to mention, you pretty much have to live within 3 miles or so of the CO junction to get it. Folks out in the sticks won't have that luxury.

[PFKEY]

At over 2000k/sec I'm not sure if tweaking will help much but I am a strong advocate of same. Did wonders on my dial-up and a slight improvement on my DSL.

Gigabytes/sec...can't wait. Just wonder what the point of diminishing returns will be when you start running into bus/processor speeds and the like.

[lshoultz]

This study seems to ignore the fact that not all cable and DSL networks are equal. My ISP only offers DSL service over a Wide Area Network that necessitates installing a networking card into your computer. The upside is that it is three or four times faster than the cable modems offered by my cable company.

[RandallFlagg]

I do 1MB in three seconds on my satellite. I love it.

[SubMareener]

How does it do when it is raining?

[RandallFlagg]

No difference. Even in heavy snow. I had to scrape the snow off the dish last month when we got 4' in 3 days, though.

[FreedomPoster]

I just scanned all the posts, and didn't see anyone comment on what I see as the truth of the issue:

1) In places where you can get cable Internet access, and no DSL, cable is much faster than DSL (duh!). Service from the cable company is not unlikely to be poor.

2) Conversely,in places where you can get DSL, and not cable, DSL is much faster than cable (duh! again). Service from the DSL company (likely the ILEC/RBOC) is not unlikely to be poor.

3) In places where you can get both, sometimes the cable is better/faster, and sometimes the DSL is better/faster. It all depends on service provider and locale. Cable has the potential to be substantially faster than DSL, but often isn't due to poor network design. Reliability is more important than speed to many users, and often (not always) the RBOC DSL providers are more reliable, perhaps because of the telco heritage.

"This" is better than "that" because of "x" arguments, in this space, are pointless. It all depends on the local providers and their implementations of the techologies.

http://www.broadbandreports.com/ is a good resource.

[marbren]

I got DSL two weeks ago from Verizon and its great. Broadband wizard test says I have 200KPS and Verizon test says I have 600KPS. Any idea why the difference? Also, is Zone Alarm (free version) all I need for a firewall.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Reliability is more important than speed to many users, and often (not always) the RBOC DSL providers are more reliable, perhaps because of the telco heritage.

My SBC (Ameritech) DSL hasn't gone down in months... and there is still no cable ISP available to me.

[RippleFire]

bump

[paolop]

My tested speed 4548/996 (Broadband.com), ISP is Optimum Online

[US admirer]

Read it and weep!


Speed test:


Link to our test: http://www.thebandwidthplace.com/speedtest

Results

3 megabits per second

Details

Your raw speed was 2953611.44 bits per second which is the same as:

Communications

3 megabits per second


1MB file download

2.8 seconds

Rating

Compared to all connection types worldwide, yours is fantastic

[dennisw]

Broadband competition "has created intense pricing pressure, so performance metrics such as connection speed are likely to become an increasingly important factor.............

 

A stinking lie. There is no competition in broadband. Only collusion. I have it and it's gonna get dumped as soon as I have some mega download sessions. Priced too high.

[savedbygrace]

You post is 100% spot on. Most of the blanket arguments of DSL vs. Cable are useless and meaningless.

For instance, in my area, I can get both Cable (Cable One) and DSL (SBC/Yahoo). The Cable theoretically maxes out at 800kbps, but typically runs at about 600 - 700kbps.

I'm about a mile from the telco CO, and my DSL typically runs at 1.2 to 1.5Mbps. That's why I have DSL.

As you said, each situation is different and you need to know what the real speeds are in your location as well as the reliability factor of each to make an informed decision.

[savedbygrace]

I got DSL two weeks ago from Verizon and its great. Broadband wizard test says I have 200KPS and Verizon test says I have 600KPS. Any idea why the difference? Also, is Zone Alarm (free version) all I need for a firewall.

200K-what-ps? In other words, you left out an important letter between the k and the p. Is it 200 kilobits per seconds or 200 kilobytes per second?

Either way, that's pretty slow. You could do with a little tweaking. How far from the telco CO are you? That's important to know.

As for Zone Alarm Pro, I sugggest the paid version. You get more flexibility and when there is a problem, you have access to more troublshooting information from Zone Labs. Bit the bullet and open your wallet; it's worth the extra bux.

[rdb3]

Results

1.2 megabits per second

Run the test again      Discuss in the forum

Details

Your raw speed was 1181163.01 bits per second which is the same as:

Communications	1.2 megabits per second How communication devices are rated. Kilo means 1,000 and mega means 1,000,000. Examples include 56k modem and 10Mbit Ethernet
Storage	144.2 kilobytes per second The way data is measured on your hard drive and how file sharing and FTP programs measure transfer speeds. Kilo is 1,024 and mega is 1,048,576.
1MB file download	7.1 seconds The time it would take you to download a 1 megabyte file at this speed.

Rating

Compared to all connection types worldwide, yours is fantastic

Comparisons

your speed
T1
56k modem

 Complete stats

See all the speed test statistics

I have ADSL (SWBell).

And today was a good day...

[tje]

I have both, a cable modem at my Houston residence and DSL at my Oregon house. The cable modem is faster. Not that it matters for surfing.

I've had DSL for years. I got it from USWest and the account was managed out of their business services dept. and the service was great. But once they went commercial (and lowered the price), service quaility dropped. They have since sold their residential DSL services to MSN. I would not recommend MSN to anyone.

At both residences I run networks with multiple computers, a no-no according to the DSL contract, but supported by the cable service (RoadRunner).

[Always Right]

Cable is slow and you have to share your bandwidth, plus there is the security issues related to this sharing.

I think it depends on the service. I visited a frined in Nashville Tenn several years back and his cable modem speed was not all that impressive during peak times. But since I had my cable modem, my speed is always 'outstanding', at least that is what the on-line test sites say when I test it.

[tuna_battle_slight_return]

56K outspeeds both cable and DSL. It's one of America's secret truths. That's all you need to know.

[RAWGUY]

I wonder if you can download a 20 meg file in 1 second on DSL off their backbone.

nope, you can't.

this was a good test for whiners who said their DSL was faster.

of course with all the hops and traffic on the internet, you'd never get anything close doing real world surfing

Nope and you can't do it either with your cable connection as the total bandwidth offered by cable systems is 5 meg per second. You only get this if you are the only one on the segment at the time.

My DSL offers just over 1 meg per second and it is there all the time and is very reliable. I doubt that it will offer a total of 5 meg per second anytime soon but I don't run the risk of sharing the bandwidth with as many as 50 other people either.

[SamAdams76]

Shhh...
Cable is slow and you have to share your bandwidth, plus there is the security issues related to this sharing.

You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

I have had cable over a year and it a blazingly fast. This despite the fact that most people in my neighborhood have it as well and are on the same subnet. I have no issues with downloading and viewing video in real time and 4-minute MP3s download in as little as 20 seconds. In fact, downloading MP3s is so fast with cable that it is less time to just download them then to rip them from my own CDs.

Security issues are a concern no matter what form of internet access you use. With a little effort and at little to no cost, you can put up an effective firewall. If you are willing to invest a little time and money, you can put up a firewall that rivals that of a major corporation. At any rate, hackers will typically be bored to tears accessing the computer of the Joe next door. Many people have an exaggerated sense of importance of themselves. After over five years of being almost constantly online at home, I have never had a single security issue.

[mikegi]

I don't think this testing site is accurate. I tried the test with my Adelphia cable modem (capped at 3000/128) and it reported a larger than allowed upload speed (>200). The reported d/l speed was 2200, which is certainly doable.

I get more reasonable results from dslreports.com. A test there showed 2907/117.

All of these online testing sites are approximations anyway. They just give you an idea of the speed of the connection to their site.

I have yet to see any effect of the cable modem sharing, which is always touted by the DSL-heads as a downside, affecting my speed. Cable is cheaper and has a higher cap than the DSL available in my area (Bellsouth). The biggest problems with my service are the email and usenet servers although Adelphia has recently upgraded their email service (requiring an email address change for my family since our original provider got bought out, ugh!).

[chuckr]

I suggest we check the contracts and their fine print. Cable companies do not guarantee a minimum bandwidth with their Internet access service. So I ask, "what am I paying for?" just their good faith effort which does not include minimum down times also! DSL providers' contracts should be checked also look for guarantted bandwidths and availability.

[FierceDraka]

Cable is slow and you have to share your bandwidth, plus there is the security issues related to this sharing.

I'm not too concerned about pipeline security, but I have both hardware and software firewalls running on my cable setup. Besides, if I was to opt for a DSL line, I'd have to work with the local phone company. They are absolutely notorious for terrible service, and have been fined multiple times for said service.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

I believe what he means is that the speed remains fairly constant with DSL as you add users to the backbone, whereas with cable, the actual speed is highly dependent on the number of users.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

I don't have either, but it seems to me that if you use a router with a firewall, you can overcome many of your issues. Of course, if you connect your computer directly, you've got problems. What I was thinking of was using a router and connecting multiple computers to the router. Any problems with that concept?

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Neither DSL nor cable is available in my area. I've noticed several different options for satellite, but am confused by them. Maybe you can help me out here.

What is the cost?
Do you also have to subscribe to satellite TV?
Do you have to have an extra phone line in your house, or can you duplex from the satellite dish itself?
How stable is satellite?
Are static IP addresses offered?
Is the setup more like DSL or more like cable?