Dial-up vs DSL

[stripedbass]

At the risk of sounding like a really ignorant fool, I'm going to ask a very stupid question.

I've always had a dial-up connection for my Internet through an ISP. At $8.50 per month and unlimited usage, I thought it was a great deal.

For my phone and cable services, I have Comcast. It's a package deal that came as an introductory offer and I was paying about $85.00 per month. When this offer ended, 2 months ago, my Comcast bill went up to $108.44 per month.

However, Comcast says that for $106.00 and with a smaller cable channel selection (Economy Video), I can also get DSL for my Internet connection (they went through the cable channels I would lose and most of them I don't watch anyway). They say that the DSL speed is 1 megabyte.

My question is this: if I get DSL and still use my iMac, will I notice a big difference in my Internet speed compared to my present dial-up? The dial-up is at 56K but the ISP says it's really 53K. I know that presently I cannot stream nor use YouTube. Would I be able to stream and watch YouTube with DSL?

[Texas Mac Man]

Your dial-up internet connection speed is 53/56K max, but when I had dial-up the highest connection that I made was 48K, and many times it dropped to 26K. Are you also paying for a separate telephone line for your dial-up? If so, you have to add that cost.

DSL is the high speed connection that you get from the telephone company. You get a broadband connection from Comcast cable. The 1MB speed is much, much, .........much faster than dial-up. I have AT&T DSL service at 3MB download speed & 1MB upload speed. Currently I pay $17 per month for this service.

There are two things that limit your ability to see video like YouTube. One is the speed of your internet service. The second is the characteristics (RAM, processor speed, video card, etc) of your Mac. If you want to view with your iMac 350MHz, you can watch YouTube videos, but usually the sound & video picture sync will be off.

[Shades of Gray]

Yes, you will, provided the Comcast service stays up. I hope you get better service than we did. I had AT&T DSL for 3 1/2 years without a single outage, consistent speed. I have had Comcast cable internet since Oct, but two times their service was so bad, that when I checked it, it was slower than dial-up! After several attempts at Help, I finally got through to a live person. Her "help" - "We can send a technician in 9 days to check it out for you." I was flabbergasted!! I told her that I work from home and couldn't afford to not be on the internet much less 9 days. Her solution: "Well, if you will upgrade your service to Business Class, then you might get higher priority for repairs!" And the Comcast TV is tiling the screen every other day.

I wish I had investigated Comcast internet prior to going to Comcast. J. D. Power checked in four regions of the US looking at the service satisfaction of all cable/DLS/fiber optic suppliers. Comcast was the lowest rated in customer satisfaction in all four categories in all four regions! AT&T fiber optic was highest in three regions, and Verizon fiber optic in the 4th region. I live in an AT&T dominant market. So...

So Feb 19 we are canceling Comcast and getting AT&T internet and TV both through fiber optics. We wanted to switch immediately, but AT&T couldn't transfer us sooner. The reason? So many people are switching from Comcast, that AT&T can't keep up with laying new fiber optic cables. I can't wait until we get off Comcast.

[Paddy]

Oh yes, you'll notice a HUGE difference - particularly when downloading software updates and things like that. Large files that used to take hours will take minutes. Web pages will generally load faster (maybe 3 to 5X faster - not as noticeable as when downloading files, which will be up to 20X faster) and you will be able to watch most streaming video. YouTube works fine with 256kbps from what I've read, so 1000kbps should be more than fine for that. As noted, your Mac may have problems though. (Maybe time for a new one?)

And you won't be tying up the phone line either!

Go for it!

One question - are you sure that it's DSL? Comcast to my knowledge has no DSL offerings - not in MA anyway. Verizon has the DSL market in MA, as far as I know.

You might want to look into this bundle at Comcast.com:

QUOTE

Introducing the all-new Comcast HD Starter Triple Play, which comes standard with free HD, access to over 1,000 HD choices, fast Internet speeds and unlimited local and nationwide long distance calling with monthly savings you can count on.
This package is designed for customers who want above-par entertainment options at a great value; it includes:
HD Cable
Free HD - no service or equipment charges
Access to over 1,000 HD choices
Over 80 digital channels
Channel 1 On Demand with over 10,000 movies and programs
Over 45 channels of digital music
100% digital-quality picture and sound
Comcast High-Speed Internet
Download speeds up to 15 Mbps with PowerBoost®
Complimentary McAfee Security Suite — a $120 value
Up to 7 e-mail accounts with 10GB of storage
Comcast Digital Voice®
Unlimited local and nationwide long distance calling
12 popular calling features
Voice Mail access on your computer
 
Promotional Rate is $114.99/month for 12 month(s) for eligible customers, ongoing price is $134.99/month

A much better deal than losing tv channels and only getting 1MBps internet, IMHO. I had the odd issue with Comcast when I was living in MA, but overall the service was usually pretty good. I used them for probably 8 years and during that time only had one long-ish outage of about 2 days, for which I got credit on my account. There was the odd outage for an hour or two, but other than that, generally good. The cable TV was excellent. Now, IF North Andover had had fibre optic, I would have been very interested, but for some reason or other, Verizon laid the cable in Andover, but skipped North Andover. Regular DSL was also hard to get in North Andover - few people lived close enough to the telephone switching stations to actually get it.

[Mayo]

1mbps is going to be quite a bit faster than your current dial-up speed. 1mbps equals 1000kbps vs. the 56kbps you currently "enjoy."    But I think that is still somewhat slow when it comes to viewing online video. You may experience buffering stalls unless you wait 10-20 seconds before allowing the video to begin. It really depends on the size of the video file that you are dealing with...

The major factor that will limit your online video viewing is the CPU speed of your iMac. I will venture to guess that a 350MHz CPU will severely limit your ability to watch most streaming video. When my clients have complained about video problems it has invariably been on Macs using CPUs that are slower than 600MHz.

One option is to download the entire video to your Mac before playing it.  Here is a LowEndMac article that covers some options for improving the video quality on G3 Macs. Even if you download a video before attempting to play it you may find that you have to close-down all other programs on your iMac in order to get acceptable playback quality.

While the 350MHz iMac is a perfectly fine computer for basic use, keep in mind that it was introduced in October 1999. It has an ATI Rage 128 video card with 8MB of VRAM. Today it is common for Macs to have a video card with 256MB of VRAM. Current Mac CPUs run in the 2-3GHz range. That's GHz, not MHz.  If your iMac is going to show its age it is going to be most apparent when dealing with video and graphics.

[Shades of Gray]

Also, note that if you get AT&T DSL, you don't need an extra phone line, everything comes through on one line. So we could talk on the landline and use the internet at the same time (unlike dialup).

[sandbox]

The 1mb DSL claim will probably deliver 700k in the best conditions and if you are on the fringes of their service, it will be far less.

Many people that I know that were bought out by comcast have not been satisfied, especially in the Washington-Baltimore corridor. If they have built a large enough network then you can avoid the worst service department on the planet, if your area is under-served, then you will be buying a nighmare. Comcast, from my experience sells a cable service, not DSL, which is a phone servive, but, they may have gotten into mergers that I'm unaware of.

On cable service:
If you buy a cable connection your speed and usability will depend on how many people are using the last mile in your area. If you live in an area that has a low population then you can pretty much count on steady service. If you live in a new development and new customers are being added by the ton, then, unless comcast adds additional cable you will have to live with diminishing capacity and loss of services.

The battle:

Provider=How many people can be place on existing capacity without adding additional hardware.
Consumer=How much capacity can a cusomer receive for the overpriced product in a captive market?

[tacit]

You will notice an enormous difference. A 1 Mbit DSL connection is about 20 times faster than your dial-up.

[Xairbusdriver]

Other than the huge difference in speed you'll get from either DSL or Cable is that the DSL provider (which I doubt would actually be Comcast, as Paddy said) would/should guarantee a certain minimum speed. That could well be less than 1MB, especially if you are near the maximum distance from their nearest switch (~10 miles?). Cable will not guarantee any minimum speed, as far as I know. But every one will always mention the highest speed! Your Cable speed may start to decrease as more people are added to your circuit/neighborhood, could be new building (not much nowadays!) or simply new customers. Eventually, Comcast will provide faster service when and if they are forced to; by competition (someday), too many dis-satisfied customers (increasing, but where can they go?) and/or equipment failures that get newer, faster replacements. These decreases, however, will likely not be noticed since the overall increase (15 to 20 times what you have) will be so amazing for many months!

But, before accepting any 'offer' of increased speed/access/service, carefully evaluate any alternatives. Some of those may be from competitors but some may even be from Comcast, themselves. You'll never know until you investigate and ask/bargain (yes, Virginia, there are still ways to bargain, even in this retail-price-as-marked economy).

[Mayo]

Today I stumbled upon TubeTV, a freeware application that makes it easy to find, download and convert online Flash video for playback on the Mac, iPhone, iPod Touch and TV.

[Xairbusdriver]

Have you seen one that will search for sites that use Flash and disable them?

[stripedbass]

Hi folks,

I'm really grateful for all your feedback. I'm responding so late to your postings because I've not been able to log onto my dial-up Internet account via my ISP. I kept getting messages such as:

"No carrier detected. Please check your phone line connection and try again."

Or:

"Could not negotiate a connection with the remote PPP server. Please verify your settings and try again."

And when I called my ISP, the toll free number is constantly busy.

I've just managed to log on but who knows how long I'll be on before I lose the connection?

Yes, folks, this latest experience plus your feedback have finally convinced me to take the plunge: dump my dial-up account and get Comcast's DSL.

My question now is this: Is there anything I can do with my ISP to ensure that the transition from my old e-mail address to the new one that I'll get is smooth? Should I close my dial-up account after a few weeks of having my DSL account?

[Paddy]

QUOTE

Should I close my dial-up account after a few weeks of having my DSL account?

That's a good idea - it will give you time to get all your contacts notified of your email change, plus picking up any mail that comes through on the old account. Most ISPs won't forward your mail when you move to a different ISP.

Also - back to one of the other questions; is this Verizon DSL or Comcast cable? I've never heard of Comcast offering DSL. (I lived in MA until two years ago.)

[stripedbass]

Hi Paddy,

I'v3e just double checked with Comcast before answering your question.

You are right. It's not DSL. The 1 megabyte Internet package is called Economy Internet.

By the way, a snag has developed. In terms of the cable channels, if I got Economy Video, as opposed to what I have right now (Digital Starter), I'll lose MSNBC which is one of my most popular channels. So I'm still trying to figure it out.

[stripedbass]

I finally decided to get "Economy Video" even though it doesn't include MSNBC. At least it gets CNN.

Comcast then went ahead and tried to hook me up with "Economy Internet." I connected my iMac to the Comcast Motorola modem I already had for my cable stations with an ethernet cable. Comcast said that I did not have to download any software. But for some reason I couldn't make an Internet connection. I talked to the Comcast technical support people on the phone. We couldn't figure out what was wrong. One of them claims that my computer is not creating a new IP address as it's supposed to. He scheduled for a technician to come to my home and check it out.

I wonder what could be wrong.