[NEO]

I need faster internet connection but don't need to pay too much, right now I pay about $20 a month for telephone (BellSouth) and use normal dial up. I am thinking maybe DSL but not sure. I've heard that there is a DSL for 9.95 a month(?). Bellsouth also have DSL. There are many other options but I'm not sure which one.
I am not limited to DSL but I have no idea what else to use.

Also,do I need additional software for DSL and do I need another phone line or it will be included? I dont really want to buy peripherals.

How about Yahoo DSL which claim that I can get DSL speed with my usual phoneline?

(My zip code is FL33139 in case it helps)

Thanks,
NEO

 

[tortie]

Get a DSL line. Usually you dont have to get any additional software or lines to have DSL available to you. Your provider usually gives you the DSL modem & you can still use the phone while surfing the net. Plus is WAAAY faster than dial-up!

 

[Snake]

DSL is put on a subcarrier on your existing telephone wiring. No extra telephone "line" is needed.

Most DSL network interfaces (what are called "modems" but since, for DSL, no modulation / demodulation is done "modem" is a misnomer) run on PPoE (Point to Point over Ethernet). All you need is a standard 10BaseT network card (or motherboard interface) - 100BaseT will also work, of course, for a 100BaseT interface is backwards compatible to 10BaseT.

However, PPoE is not a protocol for standard networks. Therefore, if the DSL NI runs PPoE you generally run an installation program which installs a proprietary network stack and TSR's to route the DSL through the OS's (Windows) network stack using RAS (Dial Up Networking) via a pseudo Dial Up Networking "adapter" (a redirector).

In other words, it's a hack.

If you get DSL I recommend buying one of the genuinely inexpensive broadband routers (Linksys, Netgear, Belden, D-Link, etc) out there (any would be better than nothing, so I mention all brands - some are indeed better than others but the difference for home use is genuinely small). You'll only pay $60 or less, one time, with good shopping. The router for your DSL will serve two purposes, (a) give you a hardware-based firewall and (b) allow your computer to run standard TCP / IP services with the router handling TCP to PPoE interpretation. This way your computer has no TSR's nor RAS Dial Up network stack hacks.

Because I *really* hate those.

 

[Demolition]

Do you like BellSouth's service and performance? If they're okay, then upgrading to their DSL service will allow you to keep your current "@bellsouth.net" e-mail address.

However, I must say that several friends who have (or had) BellSouth DSL complained bitterly about the indifferent customer service and shoddy tech support. As well, they are inundated by spam. BellSouth seems to have haphazard or non-existent anti-spam measures.

Some have moved to Comcast, others are now with Knology. Both happen to be cable providers, but that's incidental. If BellSouth had treated them right, they'd still have DSL connections.

Just FYI.

D.

 

[KYTGuy]

Had installed a dsl provided through my telephone co...was promised 300k bits pipe, for approx 49.00usd premium....looked wonderful on paper, even for the stiff price per month.

But it required another software overlay that had to be loaded, cared for, and I never got over 100kbits...

Filters to install at every regular phone and phone accessory was ugly, and made some of the phones stand out further from the wall...

So I dumped DSL, and went for cable...for the same monthly premium, as I already had cable service, plus they had a free install offer...

Now the cable company has upgraded from the advertised 1500K bits to 3000Kbits, and I actually average over 2500 on some downloads...

And no filters dangling from the jacks...

Cable works for me..

 

[Kirosia]

Broadbrand is pretty good, I've got comcast and it's only approx. $40 a month.

 

[wallijonn]

I went with QWest 256K DSL. It really is about 10x my dialup, as my dialup (after the new move) was only about 28k baud. It was so slow that I could not do system updates on RedHat and SUSE. A 128 Meg download (d/l) would take about 8 hours. DSL 256k takes about a hour. I have the option of going up to 1.5M dsl for about $40 a month. I see no reason for it as I no longer take online Microsoft training.

Cable would take about 5 minutes, but it would cost me about $55 a month ($15 cable basic and $40 cable modem, down from $24.95 cable basic and $40 a month for cable modem). My DSL is $21.99 a month; I have to use my own email provider, which I paid $20 a year.

My cable was so saturated that I could not use it between 7pm and 11pm every night. I could tell after 5pm who just got in from work. I was never really happy with cbale TV as there were always lines through the reception, had fuzzy channels, herringbone on a few channels, the Sci-Fi channel would drop at least 3 times a day, sometimes for an hour at a time, unfocused channels, colour variance...

In PA I used to have 540K DSL for $40 a month. It actually drew web pages faster than cable modem. At the time cable modem had not come in. I used the LinkSys built in PPoE so I never installed the PPoE from Verizon. Then I switched to cable modem when the service was started. My cable bill was about $80 a month.

In NYC, cable modem is usually $50 a month. Throw in another $50 a month for cable and you're looking at about $100 a month. In NJ my friend is paying over $135 a month for his cable package (which includes Digital TV channels. You would think that if you have the Digital channels that they would make them all digital. Digital cable comes with a lot of music channels.)

If money is no object, if you have a slow machine , definitely go with cable. If you have a fast machine and are not doing video viewing, then you can go with DSL. If you take online training, then cable would be a better option.

But I would rather go DSL and dish TV. next year dish TV will also go dish Internet at 256K for $30 a month.

check www.dslreports.com to see how your service providers are being rated in your area. I have an Atlantic Bell / Westell B90 540K DSL modem I could sell you if you need it (along with a dlink 4 port router).

It is best to get cable modem when theyt have sale packages, like paying $24.95 a month for the first three or 6 months.

There is an advantage to a slower connection over cable - you have enough time to stop the popup windows. cable is so fast that if you do not have a popup stopper you can be inundated with popup windows and will have to restort to contrl-alt-delete to end the task. I ended up trying about half a dozen popup stoppers before I settled on one I liked.

Definitely get a hardware firewall / 4 port router as it wil block a lot of the kwazza inquires. don't forget to change the admin password with something very hard and complex. I use 32 character passwords. write the password on the unit itslef.

 

[SptsNaz]

I use Earthlink cable (broadband) which is priced at approximately $40 a month. I also got a 10mb e-mail account. So far i've had no complaints whatsoever, except for a time when some ass cut the cable line outside my house. But that has nothing to do with the service. Anyway - From really good servers I get download speeds reaching upwards 350kb/s (somewhere around 3.0 megabits/s). On average I get around 250kb/s. It's probably due to the lack of broadband users in my community.

 

[funnytimes]

Once you go broadband and take advantage of what it has to offer, you could not possibly consider going back. To me it is comparing senn hd580 to coby earbuds.

Taking specific advice on broadband such as speeds, pings and price is bad, because broadband varies greatly in different areas.

 

[Gariver]

wallijonn:

Let me tell you: I fully appreciate the time and effort you put into every one of your posts. I always learn something new from them. Therefore: Thank you very much!

 

[wallijonn]

Gariver,

Thank you for your kind words. It is much appreciated. I often feel that no one reads what I say.


funnytimes,

When I dropped Cox Cable ($80 a month) I went to www.isp.com. Their 56K dial-up is $8.95 amonth without a contract, 10MB email and 5 email sub-accounts. Surfing was actually pleasurable as I had more than enough time to cancel the popups. It was just when I had to download 650MB for Linux images, or 128 MB W2K SP4 that I had problems. So I bought the latest Linux distros from EBay for about $5 each. But RedHat and SUSE would just hang after an hour or two.

Exactly how much speed do you need to read Head-FI? Not much as there is little interaction and no popups. WHen I hit a site that needs "another" RealTime Player plugin I just cancel out. I no longer need bells and whistles. I need to be able to download the latest patches, security updates and patches, updates (like drivers, anti-virus, game patches, mods, etc). These I can tolerate at about 15 minutes to an hour. I don't do online gaming. If you buy an online-only game you have to pay the biggest" prices and use it "now". What happens in a year or two when no servers are running that game online? Speaking of on-line gaming, I can't afford to pay $20 a month to play a game. MMORP games may be all the rage, but why add another $20 to the cable bill?

Imagine buying a PS2 on-line only game and then finding out that no one is playing it when you're online. Or there's cheaters.

When you have cable that is so fas,t you don't get a chance to take a break. You end up rushing to go to the bathroom and then rush rright back. I would rather start a download, CD or DVD burn that will take 15 minutes to an hour if I can do other things meanwhile, like read, watch a movie, make dinner, make phone calls, get the mail, write out checks, go to the grocery store, etc.

The lack of cable TV no longer bothers me. Now instead of spending $40 for cable I buy 1 DVD movie a week. So I'll end up with 52 movies in a year's time. With cable I would end up with none (or maybe 10 a year - only the very best, and only when they first come out becuase they jack up the price a week later).

 

[dabeststax]

Something that I didn't see mentioned was upload/download rates.

I have a cable connection and the download speed I get 99% of the time is 360kbps or higher.

My uploads on the other hand are stuck around 15k a second. If you upload stuff to webservers or maintain a website cable may not be a good choice... Obviously cable connections come with varying levels of performance but I haven't seen any with uploads above 40k a second.

While what wallijon mentioned about overcrowded cable lines is true, its pretty rare in my experience. I've had cable in GA and now IL and while the service in GA was not perfect, it was good (Comcast) but the service here in IL is near-perfect (Insight).

It's actually pretty easy to get near T1 performance with DSL that means 100kbps downloads and 100kbps uploads. That would be the best choice if you send lots of information to the net.

If you get lots of information from the net, I would go cable.

My cable is $45 a month and thats without basic cable TV.

Either one will be a vast improvement and a good choice to be honest.

 

[jamont]

Quote:

Originally posted by Gariver wallijonn: Let me tell you: I fully appreciate the time and effort you put into every one of your posts. I always learn something new from them. Therefore: Thank you very much!

I'd like to second this. He tipped me off to dslreports.com last year when I was getting a DSL line - that was the single most useful piece of advice I've gotten on Head-fi on any subject.