Thinking of going from Cable to DSL

Eddie

My girlfriends daughter and husband (formerly from Berwick) now live in Kutxtown, but a new section in God's country, and they can't get cable yet and are in the same boat you're in.
 
Cable isn't always faster than DSL. Just that the DSL companies need to use the extra speed they have and provide it to the customers. Some places see as high as 8-10 mps off DSL, something cable could only dream of. (BTW, you don't even want to know what that costs. <G>)

DSL's big plus is it's dedicated bandwidth, not shared among a sector like cable is.
 
I pay 50/month for 1.5Mbps/768kbps DSL. Wow 8-10 Mbps DSL?? Don't they call that T1? My DSL is already in the low end of T1 range except for the upload.
 
No, a T1 is only 1.5...

I think our 768/384 DSL here is around $35/month including internet access, another $15 or so more a month if we want the 'hyperspeed' 1.5/768 one. Cable is $55 a month for 1.5/128 (but more like actual speeds of 600-800/80).

---------
T-1 - 1.544 megabits per second (24 DS0 lines) Ave. cost $400.-$950./mo.
T-3 - 43.232 megabits per second (28 T1s) Ave. cost $8,000.-$18,000./mo.
OC-3 - 155 megabits per second (100 T1s) Ave. cost $25,000.-$49,000./mo.
OC-12 - 622 megabits per second (4 OC3s) no estimated price available
OC-48 - 2.5 gigabits per seconds (4 OC12s) no estimated price available
OC-192 - 9.6 gigabits per second (4 OC48s) no estimated price available
---------

Heck with DSL or cable....OC192 anyone? <G> :D
 
Wheeeeee! They just announced our DSL is being upgraded. 3m down and 768k up, still under $40/month.

SWEET!
 
Tryng to determine if cable or DSL is faster is impossible without some information. DSL loses speed the farther away your house is from the nearest switching station, and cable gets slower with more people on your local loop.

If you are next door to a switching station, get DSL, but if you are in a small town that has just had cable installed, go with cable. Of course this assumes the line quality in both cases is sufficient not to affect signal strength.

I remember here a few years ago when we first got cable it was /fast/ as all get out, now since over half the island has signed up, cable internet speeds suck compared with DSL, since there are lots of switching stations in the metropolitan area.

As for router vs switch, as someone mentioned, if you only connect one computer get nothing, just plug that computer into the WAN modem. Alternatively, you could set up your connected computer as an AirPort base station and stick an AirPort card in both machines and have a little wireless LAN, since your connected computer will share the internet connection.

As far as switch vs router, I don't really think they're comprarable from what I understand. A switch, by itself, is only a hub that routes connections through a MAC-address mapping table so the ethernet packet doesn't have to go to every single node on the LAN, but in essence it's still just a hub. A router almost always incorporates a switching hub, but it also shares (or more specifically connects to) another WAN connection, and usually incorporates, among other things, a DHCP server to give IP addresses to your connected computers. I'm not sure how you could connect a switch directly to the internet (at least with my ISP)...
 
Hey everyone...just thought I would come back in on this one.

I ordered the DSL...the hardware will be here today or tomorrow and the service will be running on Tuesday. I am going out to get a 4-port router with DHCP this weekend. No, I am not going to get a wireless router even though I can probably find one for just a bit more...unless I can find one for under $50. I don't really need wireless at this time as I have no protable, but the company I work for is thinking about getting me a portable (not a mac :( ) with wireless since we have it here at work...but other than that, I don't think I need the wireless.

I ran a couple of tests on my current line at dslreports.com to see what I am getting now. Over a couple of days of testing, I think I have a pretty good idea of what I average. When I get the DSL going I'll do the same and then assess from there. Since the first month is free, and I can cancel whenever I want, I will do this testing before I cancel my cable. I'll be able to pick the best with no extra cost to me at all, which is cool.

OK, that's it. When it is up and running I'll post the test results. Thanks to everyone for their imput. It was all very helpful.

Talk to you later,
Eddie
 
Let's have an update shall we...

My hardware got here on Thursday, but my wife forgot to tell me. No big deal, the service wasn't ready yet. So on Friday night I got an email saying my service was ready, which was a surprise since they had until 6:00PM this Tuesday to actually hook it up.

I started to get everything set up, but then stoped short as it was late and I wanted to get the router in the mix from the get go.

So Saturday morning rolls around and I figured, what the heck, the family was sleeping and I had some time. So I hooked everything up and finished the install. Sadly, I kept getting disconnected.

I called Verizon Tech Support and talked to Mike in Texas for 1h6mins early on Saturday. He was super helpful and extrememly forth coming with information. So much so that he saved me $50 right then and there. While we weren't having any luck getting it connected (he could tell it was a prob with my account not authorizing on their end) I mentioned that I was heading out to get a router for DHCP addressing. He mentioned that they sell a specific router that they support...it was different that the one I was thinking about. But then, as an aside, he mentioned that the modem itself has a function to act as a DHCP router, but that this feature is turned off normally.

Well hey, I thought, I already have a 5-port switch...so I asked him if that would work for me for what I wanted to do. He said sure it would and asked if I had the time to walk through the setup with him. In the end the modem is acting as the DHCP addressing device so I don't have to use my Mac and run into problems with other people logging in and out and cutting other people on the netowrk off.

But the DSL still would not come up. He figured it had something to do with the service not activating my account because it was so much earlier than they had planned on. He asked if I would be patient and try again in 24 hours...no prob after the amount of help he had already offered.

So Sunday I got up, unhooked th cable modem, hooked up the DSL and was blessed with downloads over 3 x's faster and uploads at least 2 x's faster. DSL is so much better (so far) in my neck of the woods than cable. And on top of everything it's cheaper month to month.

It's great. Right now I have my system on, and my other system in my brothers apt across the hall (usually running OS 9.2) on. We (my wife, daughter and I) live above a coffee shop that my wife and her mother own--and my wife's and mines portrait and design studio is in the back. They sometimes use this space as an office. I have a Umax J700 running OS 9.1 in there as of this past Friday. Tonight I am going to bring that system up stairs and make sure it is just as easy to get it hooked up. If I have luck I will put it back in the studio and run about 200 feet of Cat5 back to them (anyone know how far you can take Cat5 before you loose signal?). They want to use this system for their books, but I have denied this request until I can get it networked for the sole reason that they need to have a backup of some kind. My other system (the one in my bros apt) will become the community backup system.

If this all goes as well I might run a line down to my father-in-laws antique shop and try to get his Win98 box (can't win them all) hooked in.

Anyway, I just wanted to post this as a way of saying thanks to everyone for helping me with this. In the end, if I get everyone hooked in, I'll post about that experience as well.

Thanks again to everyone,
Eddie

And yes, tonight I will be calling Verizon Tech Support, asking for Mike's supervisor, and letting him know that at least one member of his staff understands the term customer service. He was a real pro.
 
Back again with an update and a small request for a tutorial...

The Umax works like a dream on the network, even if the display is maxed at 832X600 (or something goofy like that). It's not on right now because after testing I sent it back downstairs and just need to get my 200' of Cat5 and run some line. But I think it's going to work out nicely. I even figured out how to setup a little AppleTalk network between OS 9 and OS X so I would be able to move things back and forth...worked perfectly. Yeah, it was very easy actually, but I still needed to pat myself on the back!

OK...so here's where I need help once more. Way back in the day--like 2 weeks ago--when I had cable, I enjoyed a static IP that allowed me to use a barebones SSH program from my W2K pc at work to log into the Mac at home and mess around. This was a great feature if I left my IM running--couldn't log in at work if it was up at home. I could just log in an kill the process and be up and running here at work. More useful however, I used it when I was slow at work to teach myself some very minor C programming. I used emacs and the built in GCC compiler over the SSH to work on tutorials. It rocked.

So I would like to continue this stuff now that I am on DSL. But I have (at least I was told I have) a revolving IP now. I downloaded a little program that will display my router's IP in the menu bar--I am pretty sure I need this first to be able to do anything, right? Under system prefs I can easily see what address the router is giving my box. So my question is, how do I use these to SSH my Mac at home from work. Is this only accomplished through a VPN now that I have a router and don't have direct access to my Mac, or can I get access to my Mac some other way?

Just thought I would through this one at y'all since everyone was suprememly helpful in getting me ready for DSL.

Thanks in advance for anything you can suggest.

Eddie
 
michaelsanford said:
SNIP...
As far as switch vs router, I don't really think they're comprarable from what I understand. A switch, by itself, is only a hub that routes connections through a MAC-address mapping table so the ethernet packet doesn't have to go to every single node on the LAN, but in essence it's still just a hub. A router almost always incorporates a switching hub, but it also shares (or more specifically connects to) another WAN connection, and usually incorporates, among other things, a DHCP server to give IP addresses to your connected computers. I'm not sure how you could connect a switch directly to the internet (at least with my ISP)...
Click to expand...

Finally someone said it right. You need a router to share the Cable modem or DSL modem on a network. Some newer modems now include a switch (as explained above) so a router is inside the modema s well as the switch.

Having more than one switch and connecting computers to switches to computers may create a loop. Not a good thing. Your setup should be cable/dsl modem - router w/switch - to each computer or to a switch if more computers are using connection than ports available on router. Wireless can use wireless router, or add an access point to router and connect that way.

Keep in mind any Internet sharing done via computer, whether wired or wireless means the computer stays on 24/7 to allow other computer access. Your call on that one, but may explain why connection does not work all the time on second machine.

As an example, my setup is cable modem (Comcast 3Mbps) to a Linksys wireless router w/4port switch to 2 switches;one in living room, one in back bedroom. Each switch connects several computers and networked laserwriters. All share Internet through the Router including wireless Powerbook. Router only has 2 of the 4 ports used for the switches.

hope this helps,
Mike
 
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