Question on Cable versus DSL

[Michael Butash]

This is a common problem with any DSL, and why telco's are now simply 
migrating to fiber as replacing with new twisted pair copper is simply 
dumb.  Twisted pair is unshielded by old default, which means modulation 
is never as stable as (good) coax to modulate higher frequencies and 
speeds.  In-town, VDSL requires new, shielded copper runs to achieve it, 
but you'll only find this if your region was built new within the past 
5-10 years (if that).  It's still quite variable based on a friends 
experiences just two nights ago complaining about it.

I'm a bit biased having worked in cable internet industry from almost 
the onset of the tech (not currently though), but short of fiber, it's 
your best, and most stable solutions generally.  I've posted some links 
in the past with info on this topic as well if you do a search of 
archives, but there's plenty out there.

The only saving grace legacy telco's have with only old twisted pair 
infrastructure is marketing at this point to stretch the truth a bit of 
what "max speeds" are "up to".  The rest is vapor until they replace it 
with fiber.

-mb


On 02/07/2013 04:41 PM, JD Austin wrote:
> I live in AJ and did not have a stellar experience with Qwest DSL for
> one simple reason:
> they aren't willing to replace old copper.  My speeds were always
> nowhere close to what I was paying for (1.5M at the time but I got less
> than 128k)...
>
> JD