[luau] Road Runner Vs. DSL revisited

[MonMotha]

Vince Hoang wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 23, 2003 at 10:41:26AM -1000, Michael_Bishop/FARRINCS/HIDOE at notes.k12.hi.us wrote:
> 
>>From my research and my experience. DSL is slower, but has a
>>consistent download/upload time. Road Runner is faster on the
>>download, but it has lag which can be horrible is your gaming
>>or doing realtime things like webcams and voice over net.
> 

Be aware that cable modems can vary by area.  And I do mean by area (as in, 
service quality may be completely different 2 blocks down the street).  Lots of 
things come into play, but mostly the load on the segment.  In my area, there 
are two (yes, two, according to a tech) cable subnets in my subdivision alone. 
Needless to say, my cable modem is capped at 2Mb/512kb, and I get...2Mb/512kb, 
all the time.  If it's going slow, it's either a very occassional problem (like 
3 times in the past year, always fixed within 48 hours, usually less), or the 
other end can't keep up (far more likely for me).

However, another thing you may want to look at is the Serms Of Service (ToS). 
What you can and can't do with the line can be very important.  My ToS was 
recently changed to allow just about anything not illegal (see 
http://www.indy.rr.com/CompanyInfo.asp?ProductID=2&InfoTypeID=3 if you really 
want to see them, though it won't apply locally).  This is a very nice plus. 
Cable modems rarely have this on their home-user class lines, while it's a bit 
more common on DSL.

Really, you almost have to try both and see what's better.  There are parts of 
Indianapolis where cable modems just plain suck (though mostly in the Comcast 
areas), and DSL is AWESOME.  While up here, DSL is very limited as the POP is 
far away, and cable modems are really quite nice (and they recently change our 
requirements to not include basic cable as well).

Sometimes, if you want good service, you'll just have to bit the bullet and get 
a "real line" (Frame Relay is quite popular for low-cost "real lines" as you can 
get them burstable, but with varying CIRs, and you don't have to pay the 
dedicated line fee to drag a T1 all the way to your ISP of choice).  Usually 
with these, it's best to go with a small, local provider, rather than a big, 
teir 1 provider, as they'll be more likely to actually care about you as a small 
customer in terms of providing service (such as null routing, BGP peering if you 
multihome, IP space, etc).

Hope this helps.

--MonMotha