DSL modem

[Warren Togami]

This will spark a flame war... but...

Don't you already have Roadrunner?  RR is considerably faster than even the
most expensive ADSL plan.  Believe me.  I've had both in my house at one
point.  A lot of people insist that ADSL is faster, but it is simply not.
Bronze Plus 768kb down is only around 70-80KB/sec realistic peak.  Do the
math.  Divide the number by 8 to get the theoretical peak transfer speed
768/8 = 96KB/sec.

On my RR connection I consistently get between 40-200KB/sec on random
downloads, 300KB from UH and always 600KB/sec from Akamai.  My friend says
that he hits 1.1MB/sec sometimes (though I think he's exaggerating a bit).
ADSL can't come anywhere close to that.  Many DSL providers also charge
extra for bandwidth usage.  (Flex doesn't.  Lava.net does.  Does Verizon?)

Of course there are some good reasons for DSL over cable.  Many people are
concerned about the broadcast-to-entire-neighborhood nature of cable modems.
That can be problematic, especially with everyone sending their passwords
over the Net in plain text (FTP, telnet, POP3, Hotmail, Yahoo mail, etc.).
I'd say that your risk is higher of having your password intercepted on
cable, but you shouldn't be trusting any connection anyway.  Learn to use
encryption (SSH instead of telnet and FTP) and don't consider any web mail
important.

The other advantage trumpeted by DSL folks is the "guaranteed bandwidth".  I
consider this point moot because the average speeds that I have always seen
on Roadrunner (except for a few months when they were severely overloaded)
are consistently higher than the HIGHEST speeds on ADSL.  Here's what Del
Wong says on the subject, "From your ADSL modem, the line goes to a DSLAM
shelf (along with 96 other ADSL users like yourself, some at Bronze, others
may be at Platinum), and from there to a T1 link to the Frame Relay Cloud. I
hope this is clear to you, that ninety six other users sucking up from
768Kbps or higher from a single 1536Kbps line. Think, if all 96 ADSL users
downloaded at 768Kbps, that would be a total of 45Mbps, out of a1.536Mbps T1
line. Obviousdly this ain't gonna happen. The DSLAM shelf controller will
DROP PACKETS somewhat randomly from everyone's feed. When packets get
dropped, this creates a negative feedback situation, as your computer will
tell the sending computer to re-send the original data all over again,
creating even more traffic, that will be partially dropped by the DSLAM, and
then over and over again! Evil."
http://www.flex.com/adsl/slowpoke.html

One real advantage of DSL over Cable is probably the lower cost for a static
IP.  Roadrunner charges a lot more for the priveledge.  Flex, Lava (and
probably others... I dunno) have static IP's at a much lower cost.

If you go DSL, I highly suggest Flex.  Cheapest in town, and they don't
charge extra for bandwidth.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Julio Gutierrez" <gutierrej001 at hawaii.rr.com>
To: "Linux & Unix Advocates & Users" <luau at list.luau.hi.net>
Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2001 9:18 PM
Subject: [luau] DSL modem


> does anyone have an extra DSL modem for sale? or does anyone know where I
> can get one?
> I'm trying to get DSL service from Verizon but their modems are way too
> overpriced( $200).
> if anyone comes across one would you please let me know #=-)
>  thank you all!!
>
>
> Julio
>