[Cialug] Question about going broadband in Des Moines...

[cialug@cialug.org]

On Sun, Dec 12, 2004 at 11:39:09AM -0600, reinstall hell wrote:
> just looked. fastest DSL i can physically get is IDSL. which from what 
> i've read is the same as ISDN, woohoo. i live ~20000 ft from my Telco's 
> switch. does anyone know if cable internet has any limitations of this 
> sort? just curious.
> 

Cable does not have the 15,000 foot limitation that DSL does, so it tends to be available in more areas.  As other have mentioned, though, cable does tend to have a severely limited upstream bandwidth compared to its large downstream.  Cable is also a "bus architecture" meaning you may be sharing that 3 Megabits with the 100 or so other folks on the same cable.  DSL is a point-to-point digital line, so you get 100% of the bandwidth allocated to you.  That is, unless your ISP oversells the bandwidth they've purchased from their provider.

I had to get cable when I moved out to Johnston because DSL was not available.  In fact, our phone service was quite unstable the first several months we moved in, too.  Qwest still has our phones hooked through the Grimes exchange to this day.  We were told it was a "temporary line" but I have a feeling that's the way the phones have been since the house was built in 2000. . .

-- 
"It is far easier to feign ignorance than it is to feign knowledge."