Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

Poker Mac Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

No Hype 56k Modem Page

Cable or DSL?

11 August 1999 - Dan Knight - Tip Jar

Analog modems have just about outlived their usefulness. They have definitely hit a speed roadblock. Their great advantage is universality - you can find a telephone jack just about anywhere.

ISDN was the first great challenge, using one or two digital phone lines to allow up to 128 kbps bandwidth. Since the best 56k modems tend to connect at around 44-48 kbps, ISDN is roughly 2.5 times faster.

But it's preposterously expensive in comparison to analog. The hardware costs more, the phone lines cost more, and most ISPs charge a premium for an ISDN connection.

High Speed Options

There are two promising alternatives to analog modems and ISDN: cable modems and digital subscriber lines (DSL).

Compared with 48k and 128k connections, both offer significantly faster connections. Cable modems may reach 30 Mbps download speeds; DSL varies by implementation (there are several different standards), but usually starts at 256k and can sometimes hit 6M.

Best of all, both cable and DSL should be more affordable than ISDN, which means ISDN may outlive its market in the coming years.

Cable Modems

Most cable TV systems use similar cabling to the coaxial ethernet cabling that used to be common in business environments. Potential bandwidth reached 30 Mbps, about three times the speed of regular 10 Mbps ethernet.

Also, most cable systems are hooking up with high speed internet backbones. Because the internet has a lot of connections far slower than even ethernet, this is the only way they can help you take some advantage of their high speed connection.

However, there are some drawbacks. Not all cable systems are bidirectional - some require you to use a regular analog modem to send commands and upload files, so you only get the high speed for downloads. If you're hoping to host a site on your computer or run a mail server, one-way cable modems are not for you.

Even on bidirectional systems, your cable provider may throttle back upload speeds, setting perhaps a 128 kbps ceiling on data you send to the internet. They do this to discourage you from running a web or mail server from your home - or to encourage you to sign up for a more expensive program with a higher bandwidth ceiling.

Another drawback is that many cable operators specifically prohibit connecting more than one computer the the cable modem. There are ways to share a connection that may make it difficult or impossible for them to detect multiple computers connected to their system, but they really want to sell you a more expensive package if you wish to connect more than one computer to their system.

Finally, cable is a shared medium. If you're the only one in your neighborhood using a cable modem, you'll have simply amazing throughput. But if a dozen neighbors are also using cable modems, each of you will have slower overall throughput because all the data from each user has to share the same wire.

DSL

Digital subscriber lines are not as fast as cable modems. More accurately, they don't provide as much bandwidth.

However, DSL is a point-to-point connection using regular phone lines. This means you're not sharing your internet connection with your neighbors. You'll probably still have less throughput than cable, but not necessarily by much.

In fact, a recent study in San Francisco showed DSL and cable modems offered comparable download speeds. At certain times of day, cable was slower due to the number of users, but at other times it edged out DSL. But in that test overall average speed was virtually identical.

DSL may be available in several configuration, most of which offer separate upload and download speeds. You may sign up for a 1.5 Mbps download, 256 kbps upload package, or one that offers 384 kbps in both directions, or one of several other options offered by your internet service provider (ISP).

Again, you'll probably find most DSL suppliers only allow you to connect on computer to their network - unless you want to pay more.

The biggest advantage of DSL over cable is that phone lines are just about everywhere, while not everyone has cable TV.

Which is better?

In the real world, cable modems and DSL are available in limited markets. A few areas have both options, more areas have one or the other, and a whole lot of us have access to neither.

Either is a huge step up from analog or ISDN. If either were available to me, I'd switch as fast as I could get an installer to set up the hardware.

But if both were available in my area (alas, neither is), my choice would be DSL.

With DSL, I would have guaranteed bandwidth; cable modems can't promise that, since you have to share bandwidth with an unknown number of other users.

DSL works with existing phone lines, so I wouldn't need to have the phone company install a second line. In fact, this is a big advantage over ISDN and analog modems - you can use the phone to talk or fax while you DSL connection is active. LEM

Links for the Day

Recent Content

Recent Deals

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2009 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
  LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
  Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
  Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
  PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
  Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.

Custom Search

Amazon.com

Navigation

Used Mac Dealers
Apple History
Video Cards
Email Lists

Favorite Sites

MacSurfer
MacMinute
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
Macs Only!
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
PB Central
MacWindows
The Vintage Mac
   Museum
DealMac
DealsOnTheWeb
Mac2Sell
ramseeker
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End
   Mac FAQ
Abandonware
   Petition
Mac vs. PC Info

Affiliates

The Apple Store
Mac Connection
B&H
MacMall
TechRestore
ExperCom
Crucial Memory
batteries.com

Advertise

All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

Open Link

Problems viewing this page with Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6? It works fine in other browsers, including IE 7. We recommend Firefox for those using Windows, as it is standards based and more secure than IE 6 (and earlier). More LEM visitors use Firefox than any other browser.