Cable vs ADSL (1 Viewer)

[hatty]

hi

i was wondering. what is the main difference between cable and ADSL.
im about to get the 1500K/256K speed ADSL one, and im not sure if that's faster or slower then the OptusNet 12 gig Unlimited plan. anyone no?

and if anyone has used ADSL, what are its good and bad points. like can it just drop out sometimes... or does it fuck with ur phone line... and if i only have 1 phone line, can i be on the net and talk on the phone at the same time. etc.

thanks

 

[Collin]

I'm on the OptusNet 12gig Unlimited plan.

Pros:
- It's pretty fast most of the time (I'm on 512K and that's roughly 50Kb/sec).
- Allows you to make phone calls at the same time. It doesn't fuck up your line.
- 12GB is pretty good.
- No dial up costs when connecting.
- Can be online 24/7.

Cons:
- Optus sucks sometimes. Once every few weeks or so it'll disconnect you and you can't reconnect for around 10 or so minutes. Once I couldn't do it for a whole night. Again, this is a problem with Optus's network.

 

[hatty]

hey dude. i got the optus 12 gig plan as well, but is my speed 512K as well for everyone? or did u specially select that speed for higher/cheaper price? i have no idea what my speed is for that plan (but its pretty fast)

 

[Collin]

hey dude. i got the optus 12 gig plan as well, but is my speed 512K as well for everyone? or did u specially select that speed for higher/cheaper price? i have no idea what my speed is for that plan (but its pretty fast)

Um.. default speed is 512KB on Optus's 12GB unlimited plan. As soon as I signed up that was the speed I was allocated, and I believe it was actually stated on my contract aswell. You CAN change it to 1.5Mbps (pretty easily, via their website I think), but again it'll just be a matter of making your bill a bit bigger. 512KB is pretty good mate, but if you're a keen gamer wanting exorbitantly low pings aswell as a big downloader, you may want to opt for the 1.5Mbps (but then you might aswell go on the 20GB Unlimited).

One word of advice: NEVER EVARRRRRRRR use up your 12GB. They claim they downgrade your speed to 33kps or something, but really it's more like 10kps.. simple webpages take billions of years to load, and of course unlike my old dialup plan, you can't change your anniversary date so you're just gonna have to wait till your next rollover.. which again sucks if you have say 10 days to go.

 

[anti]

Optus cable is faster than my 512 connection - if you live in St Marys, anyway

My adsl (iinet/ihug) drops out occasionally and requires a modem reset - this usually happens when I'm downloading through bt or something (will have to figure that one out). If you're a hardcore leecher you won't want to use optus with a 12gig cap.. trust me.

Optus caps to 28k, which is about the same speed as a dialup modem ten years ago (oh I remember those days!)

Most adsl providers will cap you to 56k (bit faster than normal dialup) or 72k.

 

[Adrian.]

The general rule for Cable Vs. ADSL is; go for Cable if you really need speed but don't want to download too much (~12GB), go for ADSL if you don't need heaps of speed (max 1.5Mbit) but need to download lots (can get around 50GB quota). Of course if an ADSL ISP has a DSLAM in your exchange it's a different story (go ADSL!)

 

[nick1048]

I'm on otpus unlimited and I download at about 300kb/s its not 50... thats ADSL buddy. And if your downloading on secure zones, such as downloads.com, u get about 1MB/s which is very good. The only way u download slowly is p2p with a dial up dude... Cable is faster than ADSL, by a margin. CABLE = 800 - 1200kb/s ADSL = 300 - 600kb/s

 

[AsyLum]

Pro: 2am-8am unmetered downloads
Con: Basically everything bar speed and stability