Cable or DSL, gamers viewpoint.

erw1n · Post by **erw1n** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 12:12 pm

Right now i have Comcast cable, 3000/256. I finally have an option to get SBC yahoo DSL 1.5-6.0Mbs/384Kbs. From a gamers viewpoint, which service would be faster? Anyone know anything about SBC's dsl? Download speed doesn'tmean jack to me, i would just like the best connection i can get for gamin. Sorry for the rant, my wife is rushing me. Thanks in advance guys!

Edit: My choices are SBC Yahoo, Cyberonic, and Megapaths

mnosteele52 · Post by **mnosteele52** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 2:12 pm

Stick with what you have, some peolpe say that DSL has better latency but that is incorrect. Just make sure you connect your modem via ethernet NOT USB, also SBC is not a very good provider.

cyberskye · Post by **cyberskye** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 3:16 pm

I have had megapath before - excellent experience. I had their 384/384 (Covad) package and pings were right around 12ms on average.

I, too, have heard nasty things about SBC - in general I would not buy service directly from any phone company.

Does speakeasy.net service your area? I would highly recommend them if available - ask them if you are in the Covad zone or WorldCom zone - I had them in DC (WC) and here in SF (covad) and latency is actually much better with Covad; though there are many other factors that could affect the improvement.

My $0.02

erw1n · Post by **erw1n** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 3:00 am

Well, i found out i only have two speed options, 384/128, or a T1.

Looks like i'm going to 3.5/384 cable

Uncle Lar · Post by **Uncle Lar** » Fri Sep 12, 2003 12:49 am

(Growls and snaps at the family members dissin' SBC...)
From a GAMER'S standpoint, I'd go with DSL. Strictly for the constant. You don't want to be dueling some newbie in the woods and have him smoke you because you slowed down the the 56k speed. Also, what goes out more? Your cable or telephone?
For the other posters slamming on SBC and the service, I'd have to say it may just be due to where you live, and how far out you are from the co. As with any company, you'll always hear more about the bad things than the good. Bad things will get people to cause more of a ruckus than good things. For every one thing that causes a problem with a customer, we're preventing a million other problems. Nobody's perfect, but I sure as hell try to be. As for the other choices you listed, are they dsl companies? If so, it really doesn't matter who you choose...SBC does all the work anyways. They just hitch a ride..........Happy Trails and good luck my friend.

aks216 · Post by **aks216** » Sat Sep 20, 2003 10:36 am

are you going to be playing counter-strike? if so, i would probably stick with cable. basically, cable has been the most consistent with almost every gamer friend i know. some people i know had dsl and said they'd go with cable anyday to play games.

CABLE in st. louis:
texas-30ms
chicago-20ms

DSL in st. louis:
texas-60ms
chicago-40ms

the ping time is pretty much cut in half with cable in this area. you could get different results depending on where you live but even then i hear cable is better than dsl in a bunch of other cities and states. i think cable just has better networking or something?

Road Runner · Post by **Road Runner** » Sun Sep 21, 2003 12:56 pm

Originally posted by cyberskye
I, too, have heard nasty things about SBC - in general I would not buy service directly from any phone company.

Actually SBC is a good provider depending on where you are and if your lucky or not....I have Verizon Online and have not complained once about their service, absolutely flawless. And purchasing service directly from phone company is better because if you want to know whats up with your line your PC (Phone Company) can tell you exactly whats going on where as a reseller does not know a damn thing, either they tell you some crap and bull or they call the PC to find out whats up and that takes very long, I had AOL DSL and they were horrible.

TrevGlas · Post by **TrevGlas** » Sun Sep 21, 2003 7:23 pm

My ping stays constant, and I am on cable. I never see any spikes

Trev

TrevGlas · Post by **TrevGlas** » Sun Sep 21, 2003 7:24 pm

Yea I agree with whoever said it above.

It depends on

1. Where you live

2. The provider itself

Trev

PS. If you have 3000/256 why would you want to take a step down to 1.5 dsl? Just curious.

wee96 · Post by **wee96** » Sun Sep 21, 2003 7:39 pm

For the most part, both services ping times are the same. Cable shares a node, DSL shares a dslam, during peak times both slow down. I have had Comcast for 4 years now, and honestly never have had any trouble with latency at all except for occasional (maybe once a year) outages. If your cable connection is giving you very high ping times, something is definately wrong and its not normal.

Road Runner · Post by **Road Runner** » Sun Sep 21, 2003 7:42 pm

Originally posted by wee96
For the most part, both services ping times are the same. Cable shares a node, DSL shares a dslam, during peak times both slow down. I have had Comcast for 4 years now, and honestly never have had any trouble with latency at all except for occasional (maybe once a year) outages. If your cable connection is giving you very high ping times, something is definately wrong and its not normal.

Not True...I have never experienced slow downs with my Verizon Online Connection AT ALL! There's alot of people in my neighborhood with DSL Connection and don't receive slowdowns, DSL is a dedicated connection from CO to your residence, now with Cable everyone in the area shares that node....Now the only Cable ISP that I know that doesn't recieve slow downs all the time is Optimum Online, they have multiple nodes in the area to avoid slowdowns.

TrevGlas · Post by **TrevGlas** » Sun Sep 21, 2003 8:22 pm

I have used MediaCom, Comcast, Roadrunner, and never got lag spikes with any of them.

Trev

PS. And I was living right in the middle of Northridge, California if there was ever a place to experience a slowdown that would be it.

Wow I just realized your in Brooklyn - cable might slow down a little there.

TrevGlas · Post by **TrevGlas** » Sun Sep 21, 2003 8:25 pm

Originally posted by mnosteele52
Stick with what you have, some peolpe say that DSL has better latency but that is incorrect. Just make sure you connect your modem via ethernet NOT USB, also SBC is not a very good provider.

Road Runner · Post by **Road Runner** » Sun Sep 21, 2003 8:32 pm

Originally posted by TrevGlas
Wow I just realized your in Brooklyn - cable might slow down a little there.

There's two Cable companies who serve NYC area, Cablevision and Time Warner Cable...I live in a Cablevision area meaning my local Cable ISP is Optimum Online....Cablevision sets up multiple nodes to avoid slowdowns in areas unlike Time Warner.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 1:49 pm

I'll post from one of my other replies to this popular question:
***
Completely varies, according to where you live, what ISP you use, etc.

And believe me when I say this ....as this question gets asked a lot, and I always crack up seeing people say "Get this...because I have it and it rules!". "This" is better because "that" sucks.
...there is no one single technology that is better for all people. The answer really really varies upon a lot.

In general, the average home cable account often provides faster download and upload speeds, than the average home DLS account. The performance of cable is also not distance dependent, like DSL is. But the performance of cable varies greatly according to where you live...the density of other users sharing your "node". Cable in high population areas has a reputation of slowing down to glacial speeds at times.

On the contrary, DSL, that pipe is yours to the CO's main pipes....you are not sharing the bandwidth until you get up to the backbone of your ISP...a much better setup. But DSL is also distance dependent...the farther you are from the CO, the slower you speeds will be. DSL is also generally better for gaming, a benefit of it's design is lower latency (lower pings).

Add to the above, the availability of good ISP's in your area. You usually have a choice, especially with DSL. The local phone company isn't always the best performing DSL....there are often much better ISP's to get DSL from. I've stuck with the same ISP for many many years, they had excellent dial up service back in the dial up modem days, so I stuck with them for DSL. Runs circles around the local phone companies DSL service.

Add to the above yet again....general line conditions..on the street, your neighborhood, from the street to your house...and inside the house. A person on one street could have lines in good condition all the way in...and have excellent internet access. Yet go down the street, or a block over....another person with an account with the same ISP as the first person could have lots of trouble, and a miserable experience. He'd probably blame it on the ISP though.

Cable in my area is pretty good also, since I'm in a rather sparse area. In order of preference..I'd take my DSL with my current ISP as my first choice, it blows away the local cable and the local phone company DSL. I'd take cable as my second choice...because I think it's better than the DSL which my local phone company provides..which would be my third choice. The local phone company in my area is SNET/SBC...and I resell a lot of it on my job. But believe me, unless you've a quality DSL ISP, like DSL.NET, or veranetsolutions....well, you've got to experience their DSL..and you'll see what DSL can be...it's a lot better than the local phone companies DSL. So don't knock DSL just because you've only used the local phone company..try a real ISP first.

Some areas, you can get Optimum Online cable with a 10 meg download...that's pretty lucky. Other areas, you can get 6 meg download DSL...that's pretty common in my area. Yet other areas, ISP's only offer measly little 128k or 256k accounts with 1 or the other.

The local cable company in my area advertises "Twice as fast as DSL". Well, if you read the fine print...you'll notice they compare it to 640k DSL. Well...wake up knuckleheads....because the local DSL service is 1500 down. That crock cracks me up...I have no idea how they get away with that, but I'm sure they dupe a lot of people with it.

TrevGlas · Post by **TrevGlas** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 2:13 pm

Amen. Well said.

Trev

Uncle Lar · Post by **Uncle Lar** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 11:43 pm

[quote]Originally posted by YeOldeStonecat

Add to the above, the availability of good ISP's in your area. You usually have a choice, especially with DSL. The local phone company isn't always the best performing DSL....there are often much better ISP's to get DSL from. I've stuck with the same ISP for many many years, they had excellent dial up service back in the dial up modem days, so I stuck with them for DSL. Runs circles around the local phone companies DSL service.

Cable in my area is pretty good also, since I'm in a rather sparse area. In order of preference..I'd take my DSL with my current ISP as my first choice, it blows away the local cable and the local phone company DSL. I'd take cable as my second choice...because I think it's better than the DSL which my local phone company provides..which would be my third choice. The local phone company in my area is SNET/SBC...and I resell a lot of it on my job. But believe me, unless you've a quality DSL ISP, like DSL.NET, or veranetsolutions....well, you've got to experience their DSL..and you'll see what DSL can be...it's a lot better than the local phone companies DSL. So don't knock DSL just because you've only used the local phone company..try a real ISP first.

Stonecat, in defense of SBC...you can turn your argument around. If you had a bad problem with SBC, it may have been an isolated problem with something as simple as a frayed wire in the c.o.(which would have been changed if you switched dsl companies, to feed from and to the new equipment). Many people I know have had this happen in both directions...local telco better, and reseller better. I know in my offices I'd put up SBC against any provider out there speed for speed. I only wish I could prove that to you somehow!

rpeAMP · Post by **rpeAMP** » Thu Sep 25, 2003 12:46 am

I have SBCYahoo DSL. If you want me to do some tracerts to some sites, let me know and I will post the results here.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Thu Sep 25, 2003 10:43 am

Originally posted by Uncle Lar

Stonecat, in defense of SBC...you can turn your argument around. If you had a bad problem with SBC, it may have been an isolated problem with something as simple as a frayed wire in the c.o.(which would have been changed if you switched dsl companies, to feed from and to the new equipment). Many people I know have had this happen in both directions...local telco better, and reseller better. I know in my offices I'd put up SBC against any provider out there speed for speed. I only wish I could prove that to you somehow!

Well..tough sell for you to prove it to me. I have probably a couple of hundred SNET/SBC DSL installs under my belt...from regular home setups, to business setups, to high speed business setups like the 6 meg DSL package I'm using right now from my office. I've been in SNET's CO's, and I've also been a reseller for two other ISP's...I know the difference in how different ISP's sell their bandwidth..as in customer ratio to bandwidth availability ratios. It's no secret that big ISP's oversell their available bandwidth. They certainly weren't the best at providing high performing dial up, it carry's over to broadband.

Smaller ISP's can provide much higher quality managed services. They can guarantee a maximum latency from your building to their gateway...in no way whatsoever can a big ISP with lots of oversold bandwidth do that.

I've been huge into online gaming for years...I quickly learned about "ping" and "latency" back when Quake 1 was getting big. I learned about different ISP's back then...always searching for an ISP to provide the lowest ping on my mighty, I tried many ISP's, and talked to a lot of ISP techs, and learned the differences between ISPs (this was before I worked with them as a profession)

Naturally always being curious about online performance, latency, pings, etc...almost every broadband setup I've done...I've compared pings. A lot of my buddies have DSL or cable...those with local phone company DSL...they can log onto the same exact public gaming server as I'm playing on...and my pings will usually be 50% lower than theirs. My ISP has fewest hops to the major backbone in New Enland...heck, they own the fatest backbone that New England runs on. That's the key...minimum hops to your target. I've sat there and picked many random servers to compare tracerts on...and I'll come out lower with my ISP...I don't have to follow the core steps SBC has to go through. I'm well aware of the designs of cable and DSL from the ISP's point of view, and DSL being distant dependent...my comparisons with many buddies of mine, against my DSL, have been fair comparisons...we're picking random servers here, and I'm actually quite far from the CO, so I'm not at any advantage when it comes to distance and DSL..not that latency depends on distance..it's throughput that's distance dependent.

High quality ISP's also differ from just any old local bandwidth seller...I'm not saying all DSL sellers except the local phone company are good. There can be many to choose from, choose wisely. Choose those that guarantee the least hops to their gateway, those that guarantee a maximum latency of <insert low number> to their gateway...etc.

Uncle Lar · Post by **Uncle Lar** » Thu Sep 25, 2003 11:57 am

Well put my friend. The only question I have that I forgot to ask before...how is the price comarison? Are you paying the same rate for the same service? I honestly have no clue what the going rate is out east, I can only vouch for the midwest. I completely agree that gaming goes hand in hand with the least amount of hops to home. However, I have been able to use traceroutes and contact those middle-man hops that I get routed to. You'd be suprised at how easy they are to get along with and cutting your path a little shorter. It's not easy tracking the company name and number down, but with a little work it can be done. With my old cable connection, I used to have 22 hops to the server. A little homework knocked out 9 of those hops.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Thu Sep 25, 2003 12:21 pm

Originally posted by Uncle Lar
Well put my friend. The only question I have that I forgot to ask before...how is the price comarison? Are you paying the same rate for the same service? I honestly have no clue what the going rate is out east, I can only vouch for the midwest. I completely agree that gaming goes hand in hand with the least amount of hops to home. However, I have been able to use traceroutes and contact those middle-man hops that I get routed to. You'd be suprised at how easy they are to get along with and cutting your path a little shorter. It's not easy tracking the company name and number down, but with a little work it can be done. With my old cable connection, I used to have 22 hops to the server. A little homework knocked out 9 of those hops.

Prices? Yah there's a difference. If you ever hit the hardware forums, you'll see me often quote one of my favorites "You get what you pay for". Now I'm not knocking SBC in any way...I'm not saying that they're crap. Heck, they're the only ones who sell a 6 meg down package around here, my office, and many clients I have, rely on that speed. 6 megs down is nice. Downloading at 600k or 900k is pretty cool (You OOL users out there with your 10 megs pipes....ahhhh keep quiet you!

)

22 hops though..yeouch, that's gotta hurt for gaming.

They've gotten better around here on the east coast...for a while you'd often have low to mid 20 hops to any destination minimum. Now it's often quite comparible to others...11 - 15 hops.

You know what was cool? Back when I was into the clan I was with, I built and supported their public gaming server. Co-lo'd it in the data center of my ISP....same ISP I have DSL with. Across the state...but I had 1x hop to my server from my house. Ping in the teens. Oh yeah...I've been to LAN parties with more lag than that.

illestdynasty · Post by **illestdynasty** » Fri Sep 26, 2003 12:36 am

I'll let my tracert and speed test speak for itself...

C:\>tracert http://www.speedguide.net

Tracing route to speedguide.net [63.217.30.70]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms 10.164.16.1
2 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms 172.30.24.81
3 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms 12.124.235.49
4 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms gbr2-p70.wswdc.ip.att.net [12.123.9.46]
5 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms tbr2-p013702.wswdc.ip.att.net [12.122.11.181]
6 10 ms 20 ms 10 ms ggr2-p3120.wswdc.ip.att.net [12.123.9.117]
7 20 ms 20 ms 20 ms att-gw.dc.cw.net [192.205.32.46]
8 10 ms 30 ms 40 ms cpr2-pos-0-0.VirginiaEquinix.cw.net [206.24.238.
218]
9 20 ms 30 ms 30 ms bpr2-so-0-0-0.VirginiaEquinix.cw.net [206.24.227
.66]
10 10 ms 11 ms 10 ms beyond-the-network.VirginiaEquinix.cw.net [208.1
73.50.182]
11 10 ms 20 ms 10 ms ge5-1.colo01.ash01.pccwbtn.net [63.216.0.89]
12 10 ms 10 ms 20 ms 63-217-30-70.sdsl.cais.net [63.217.30.70]

Trace complete.

Also a speedtest result.

2003-09-26 00:31:44 EST: 1623 / 246
Your download speed : 1623887 bps, or 1623 kbps.
A 198.2 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 246852 bps, or 246 kbps.
Seems like broadband .. above the 1mbit barrier!

Comcast Cable 1800/256
12:30am est. In "peak time"

Cable gets my vote for gaming.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Fri Sep 26, 2003 8:55 am

Originally posted by illestdynasty
8 10 ms 30 ms 40 ms cpr2-pos-0-0.VirginiaEquinix.cw.net [206.24.238.
218]
9 20 ms 30 ms 30 ms bpr2-so-0-0-0.VirginiaEquinix.cw.net [206.24.227

Ouch...you've got some 30's and 40's in there.

Here's an example from work, using SNET/SBC's 6 meg business DSL. Now mind you, I "don't" consider this as good as home, I'm running this from a busy network including mail server in the mix, so my speed tests reflect that.

C:\WINDOWS>tracert 63.217.30.70

Tracing route to 63-217-30-70.sdsl.cais.net [63.217.30.70]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <10 ms <10 ms <10 ms 192.168.1.1
2 10 ms 10 ms 20 ms bras1-l0.mrdnct.snet.net [204.60.4.34]
3 10 ms 10 ms 20 ms dist2-vlan60.mrdnct.sbcglobal.net [66.159.184.22
7]
4 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms bb1-g5-0.mrdnct.sbcglobal.net [66.159.184.99]
5 10 ms 20 ms 10 ms bb1-p9-0.nycmny.sbcglobal.net [151.164.241.69]
6 10 ms 20 ms 10 ms bb2-p14-0.nycmny.sbcglobal.net [151.164.243.206]

7 10 ms 20 ms 10 ms core2-p6-0.crnyny.sbcglobal.net [151.164.188.94]

8 20 ms 20 ms 20 ms core2-p3-0.crhnva.sbcglobal.net [151.164.188.198
]
9 20 ms 20 ms 20 ms bb2-p10-1.hrndva.sbcglobal.net [151.164.240.182]

10 20 ms 20 ms 20 ms mae-east.cais.net [198.32.187.147]
11 20 ms 20 ms 20 ms ge5-2.colo01.ash01.pccwbtn.net [63.216.0.105]
12 20 ms 20 ms 20 ms 63-217-30-70.sdsl.cais.net [63.217.30.70]

Trace complete.

Speedtest from recently, tis slower than usual, I've hit 5,400 down. Downloads in service usually over 600K.

illestdynasty · Post by **illestdynasty** » Fri Sep 26, 2003 11:37 am

the 30s and 40s are outside of Comcast and ATT, so they can't be held accountable. I'm reaching my caps. and it looks like you are too.

wee96 · Post by **wee96** » Fri Sep 26, 2003 7:16 pm

Uhh no offense "partner", but I havent experienced slow downs on my cable EITHER. It doesnt make a damn difference what YOUR connection does, I am telling the facts. Both services are shared. You dont even know what your talking about with the whole "node" comment either, so please dont make yourself look stupid.

Originally posted by DSL Broadband
Not True...I have never experienced slow downs with my Verizon Online Connection AT ALL! There's alot of people in my neighborhood with DSL Connection and don't receive slowdowns, DSL is a dedicated connection from CO to your residence, now with Cable everyone in the area shares that node....Now the only Cable ISP that I know that doesn't recieve slow downs all the time is Optimum Online, they have multiple nodes in the area to avoid slowdowns.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Fri Sep 26, 2003 8:16 pm

Originally posted by wee96
Uhh no offense "partner", but I havent experienced slow downs on my cable EITHER. It doesnt make a damn difference what YOUR connection does, I am telling the facts. Both services are shared. You dont even know what your talking about with the whole "node" comment either, so please dont make yourself look stupid.

DSL is shared much farther upstream than cable though....usually literally only your ISP's gateway...as if I ping anything from home from my ISP, I have literally one hop from my router, to my ISP's gateway which dumps on one of the fattest backbones of New England. My driveway leads right to a nice fat 8 lane highway. Cable can take quite a few intermediate roads leading to the highway, with lots of neighbors merging on with you. Cable can be, depending on the ISP, not unlike a picture of branches on a tree.

wee96 · Post by **wee96** » Fri Sep 26, 2003 8:51 pm

Both are shared, its that simple. The arguement about both technologies could go on forever heheh, bottom line is they are both just fine for gaming when setup properly. BTW I apologize for my outburst on the last post, it just really got on my nerves thats all.

Originally posted by YeOldeStonecat
DSL is shared much farther upstream than cable though....usually literally only your ISP's gateway...as if I ping anything from home from my ISP, I have literally one hop from my router, to my ISP's gateway which dumps on one of the fattest backbones of New England. My driveway leads right to a nice fat 8 lane highway. Cable can take quite a few intermediate roads leading to the highway, with lots of neighbors merging on with you. Cable can be, depending on the ISP, not unlike a picture of branches on a tree.

mccoffee · Post by **mccoffee** » Fri Sep 26, 2003 10:10 pm

also SBC is not a very good provider. I know in my area alot of people had promblems at first cause the technology wasn't devolped I think it's fair to say it hasn't reached its full cababality yet Now i have consistent uptime i think I was only down for a day.

I will say this much with sbc there custormer service is terrible a couple times the bill was paid in advanced and they screwed it up and billed me twice saying payment wasn't recived for that's months bill however it also said funds recived and they didn't apply it to anything.

As for latency Steele is right i couldn't belive doing a couple of tracerts under a load how my latency was higher then cable. Still can't get over that one.

Also i don't know if it got mettion or not I live in a populated area and due to that fact my cable were terrible so keep that in mind.

Andrzej · Post by **Andrzej** » Sat Sep 27, 2003 2:30 pm

RE : connection check
also PathPing is worth to use
file.BAT as below
%SystemRoot%\system32\pathping.exe -p 10 -w 300 -T -R 63.217.30.70 >"%temp%\PathPing"
start /w %SystemRoot%\system32\notepad.exe "%temp%\PathPing"
del "%temp%\PathPing"
rem for explonation prg swiches %SystemRoot%\system32\pathping.exe /?
pause

SG Broadband Community

Cable or DSL, gamers viewpoint.

Cable or DSL, gamers viewpoint.

Grrrrrrrrr.....