Thankyou I can get 3mb down for about 350 a month. That seems like the best deal to me. There are no other real options down here in NO.
Seems like everyone agrees...there is no definite answer Cable vs. DSL. I recently switched from DSL to cable. Because the package deal was too irresistible. Cable TV (a must), is what it is. And for what worked out to be an additional $5 a month, I get Cable modem (Adelphia, South Florida). The DSL (Bellsouth) NEVER went down once in the time I had it (about a year). The cable is FAR less reliable. But the price makes it worthwhile for my home connection. However I would NEVER use it for trading. Reason #231 that I have always, and probably always will trade prop. T-1 line (not necessarily faster, but totally reliable), and when things go wrong (never the connection as far as I know, but other problems occur), I like knowing there are backups, and people to call. I realize that some people don't have a choice. Some locations, you may trade prop, and still have to connect from home. In that case, I suppose having both cable and DSL (when possible) is the only thing that makes sense. For the extra $40 or $50 a month, why take a chance? No sense to depend on any undependable technology when there is so much at stake. Besides, if you are trading from home, it's a deductible expense. And as I have said before, I don't know squat about technology. But I know what makes sense in business. And skimping on a connection makes no sense whatsoever. BTW, with the Bellsouth DSL, you got an automatic dial-up backup just in case. So it was only a matter of waiting for the modem to dial. Slow, but at least it was something. So having cable, and DSL actually (at least here) would give you three ways to connect. I imagine it's pretty much the same all over. Peace, RS
As far as speed, this is what I just got from <toast.net/performance>. As is apparent, my cable download speed is essentially identical to T-1 (on the higher end, too). As this does vary (this is at 5:40 pm), I know that my T-1 varies also. On average, the Cable seems a bit faster. But when dealing with just quotes, anything is fast enough. With charts, it often seems like nothing is (at least for Reuters). Here again, my lack of tech knowledge does me in. If I have a chart up, it stays up and updates in real time just fine. It is getting a NEW chart that is sometimes frustrating....I get a "please wait...server is busy" message. Where that is coming from I don't know. My offices server? Reuters? Somewhere in between? Don't know. But my guess is it really isn't the speed of my connection Image Test Results Loaded 434,315 bytes in 2.764 seconds from TOAST.net server. 33.6K Modem: 16-27K 56K Modem: 34-45K ISDN/I-DSL: 100-120K Your throughput: 1257 K Cable/ADSL: 229-950K T1: 1078-1300K Kbps: Peace, RS
Hmmm, I'm pretty sure that T1s are about 1.5 megabits per second. Not to disagree with your providers, but I'd get that speed in writing and test it using perhaps www.dslreports.com. I know there are higher Ts with faster speed, mebbe that's what you are getting.
Also check out http://www.toast.net/performance They also have a few links at the bottom of the page for other speed tests. Maybe someone else can elaborate, but I'm not sure how accurate these tests are. I've had serious issues lately with my cable connection. There will be times when it literally takes several minutes to load one web page. And I'll check my speed during these times, and it will still say my throughput is over 1000K.
Speed also depends on the efficacy of the pipes used to get the data from the web site as well as how many many people are trying to download and the connection to the web server (and its efficacy) on which the page is being stored on. You can have a fast connection downloading a page from an overloaded server or a server that has a slow connection. You may want to see if your machine is tweaked for a connection to a cable modem on dslreports.
Just hooked up with Comcast in Seattle. Self install was a breeze. Went to dslreports.com to check speed: Download 1780 Upload 280 Awesome! Next step wireless router to hook up the laptop.