[Gllug] ADSL or cable?

[Ian Northeast]

Tethys wrote:
> 
> Mark Lowes writes:
> 
> >'home' or 'single user'
> >512kbps @ 50:1 contention
> >
> >'business' or 'network'
> >512kbps @ 20:1 contention
> >1Mbps @ 20:1 contention
> >2Mbps @ 20:1 contention
> 
> Most people assume cable to be faster because it gives higher bandwidth
> numbers. What they don't tell you is that with that you get higher
> contention ratios. The last number I heard were 200:1 for NTL's cable
> service. Worth bearing in mind when making your decision. Also, check
> beforehand what proxying/filtering you'll get. With ADSL you're much
> more likely to be able to find an unfiltered pure IP connection. With
> cable, the providers seem more likely to prevent you running servers,
> for example, and may well block certain (or in some cases all) incoming
> ports. Of course, this can apply to ADSL too, depending on your ISP, but
> it seems that cable providers are more anal about it.

NTL told me that there is no contention ratio on their cable service and
experience bears this out, I get a good 1Mb/s and can download a CD in
an hour and a half, reliably. A friend subscribed to their 128Kb/s
service and we measured her connection at about 190Kb/s. Mine delivers
exactly what was promised.

The only filtering NTL apply is their blasted "web caches". This causes
serious grief when trying to connect to servers inside my company where
I need to authenticate my IP on the company firewall. Of course the web
caches are not authenticated and so cannot connect. I have to set up
proxies on ports != 80 to circumvent this. Other than this, and their
so-called "support" the service is excellent. Fortunately I have never
needed to call for support.

The terms and conditions forbid running HTTP and FTP servers, and
reserve the right to forbid others in future. But, judging by the amount
of garbage my firewall drops on the floor, this is not enforced.

Upstream bandwidth is only about 140Kb/s.

Setting up an NTL cable modem is extremely easy as it provides an
ethernet connection, the only software required is a DHCP client and a
web browser to do the registration. I used Netscape 4 and it worked
fine. They even say that you don't require Windows to connect - just
that they can't support you if you don't use it which is fair enough
IMHO.

NTL's news servers are useless, but I just use the University of Berlin
one.

Regards, Ian

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