Ed Stoffel

So now that I've had both, which is better... DSL or Cable? On price, it depends on the current offer and whether they're forthcoming about it. Based on their best offers (which you hear about when you call to cancel), Embarq's DSL here is 3Mbps for $34.95/mo., and 5Mbps for $44.95/mo... but then add $4 for taxes and regulatory fees to those prices. Adelphia's price here for 4Mbps service is $42.95/mo., plus their summer promotion offered me the first 3 months for $21.95/mo. At the end of that promotion however, they billed me for 50-days at a cost of $70.66. Both companies like to do this sort of thing, slamming you with a higher-than-anticipated bill.

As for speed, Adelphia's high-speed internet here is slower than a year ago. At that time, my typical download speeds were usually around 3.500Mbps; today, download speed test results were 1.673Mbps (ToastNet) and 1.572Mbps (DSL Reports)... quite disappointing. Last time around, cable speeds exceeded advertised rates. DSL speeds were consistently close to the advertised rates, usually testing at 100Kb under the rate purchased. That was with the 3Mbps service; I don't know if the same holds true with the 5Mbps DSL service.

Since returning to Adelphia in June, our connectivity has failed three times... twice for over an hour. DSL failed at about the same rate, though early in our service, it was out for over a day. I no longer use VoIP service, but recently, I used it on Adelphia cable and its quality was about the same as DSL. Installation of cable service has gone smoothly both times while DSL installation missed deadlines and I had to deal with multiple billing errors.

So which is better? While it could be a hassle to arrange, DSL service may now be better... because I have slow cable internet. But if I switch back to DSL, it may have become worse and cable could get better. I guess the other man's broadband is always greener.

UPDATE: When testing an hour later to insert a screen grab of the test, my download rate was much higher... so that's how much the speeds vary on cable internet.

I called Embarq (Sprint became Embarq a week ago) to finally cancel my DSL service. Whadda ya know, they did the same thing Adelphia did a year ago... offered a "new lower price", which I didn't take because I've already got the cable internet reinstalled. When I called in April, they didn't mention any of this, but now, they're offering 3Mbps DSL for $34.95/mo., and 5Mbps for $44.95/mo. I cancelled anyway, and that required adjusting my phone service plan, which dropped from $60.95/mo. to $44.95/mo. I've noticed a trend. Whenever there are price increases, they slap them onto my bill immediately, but when there are price drops, they don't seem to remember to tell me about them unless I ask, especially when I talk to them about dropping service. Now why is that?

I've gone back to Adelphia for high-speed internet service after a year of Sprint DSL. I had switched to Sprint for a better price and presumable better service, hoping that the speed wouldn't seem much slower. Unfortunately, none of my assumptions held true. It turns out that Adelphia has lowered their price for 4Mbps service to $42.95/mo. here, and have a special where it's cheaper for the first 3 months. As for better service, I found that Sprint DSL drops about as often as cable internet. As for speed, Sprint's 1.5Mbps was too painful, and I upgraded to 3Mbps almost immediately. I had to stay with Sprint DSL for a year to avoid a termination fee of $100, but I couldn't stand waiting till June 15th to switch back. So the DSL modem will just sit there until June 15th, when Sprint will get the bad news.

I'm getting weary of the slow speed with Sprint DSL and would love to switch back to Adelphia. So I visited their local office this week to see if I could still get the deal mentioned to me in June. At that time, they offered a rate of $19.99/month for SIX MONTHS, to be followed by a rate of $42.95/month. I learned that this was the special rate offered to new subscribers, and they were just being nice offering it to me. I should have taken it.

Instead, I cancelled my Adelphia service in June, having already signed up for Sprint DSL. It turns out that Sprint's service is much slower than cable, so much so that my VoIP service stutters whenever I'm downloading at the same time. Sprint also threatens a $99 termination fee if I cancel before 12-months. I still thought it would be worth it to cancel if I saved $120 over six months with Adelphia, but their current offer is only 3-months for $19.99, so I'd only be saving $60. Do I want to switch anyway, and eat a $60 loss? I'm not sure.

The DSL speed is consistent but slow. Adelphia cable is fast but sometimes flaky. Actually, my DSL has been loosing connectivity from time to time, but only for brief periods. They may also be blocking my VoIP... because it goes out when everything else is working. Now why would a phone company block my VoIP service??? Hmmm.

My latest Sprint DSL bill came yesterday, and now I can see what the regular monthly bill will really be. After that big $200+ bill to get started, I'm now down to $45.92/month for the DSL. That compares to $54.95/month for Adelphia Cable's internet service. The standard rate for Sprint DSL is $49.99, less discounts of $8, and plus taxes and regulatory fees of $3.93. The discounts are $5 for having Sprint Long Distance and $3 as a 12-month promotion, which goes away after that, raising my monthly bill to $48.92 (plus any increase in tax). So Adelphia's deal of $41.99/month would be costing me less. But now I'm stuck with Sprint for 12-month or have to pay a $99 early termination fee.

Sprint DSL is SLOWER than Adelphia Cable... 1200 Mbps vs 3000+. But it is fairly solid and reliable, where the cable would drop packets on a regular basis. Since I'm using VoIP, I really want constant, reliable service. Sprint DSL does still hiccup once in awhile.

A few days ago, my VoIP stopped working for a few hours. VoicePulse said they were having a problem with some ISPs blocking their service, but didn't say which ones. I hope Sprint isn't doing that. I'm glad VoicePulse has Line Unavailable Forwarding, so calls still get through on another line.

So I'll stay with Sprint DSL for now, and see how things shake out. But if I ever move and need to revisit this, I'm leaning back toward cable internet. Speed vs reliability --- I want both!

I switched to Sprint's DSL to save money because they told me it would be $41.95/month. So I agreed to switch, to save about $15/mo on internet service. So how much was my first bill? $200.74, which includes $24.39 in taxes and surcharges. That's the part they don't tell you when you sign up. Now part of the bill is also $38.07 for a voice phone line, which I have to keep in order to have DSL. I'm wishing I could have kept Adelphia now, and taken them up on their offer of $19.95/mo for 6 months, and then $41.95/month. But I didn't hear about that until I already had the DSL, and called Adelphia to cancel. The Sprint bill does have a partial month in there, and activation costs. So I won't really know until next month what the regular bill is going to be. No wonder they charge $99 if you cancel before 12 months.

Sprint's DSL was finally working late Thursday. I left the house for a few hours, and when I returned, it was on. A watched DSL line never activates.

I was using Adelphia cable for internet service. But lately, it's speed and constant connectivity has been unreliable. Adelphia also wanted $54.95/month. The Sprint deal is $41.95/mo, and I'm hoping they even come down from there to match Verizon's deal of $29.95/month, unavailable in my area. Sprint required a 1-year service commitment when I signed up two weeks ago. When I called Adelphia to cancel service today, and mentioned that the reason was cost, they offered to lower my price to $19.95 for six months, then followed by $42.95; unfortunately too late for me to accept. Besides, I believe the DSL service will be more reliable.

With Adelphia, I was using two Netgear routers, an FR114P as the first router, and a WGR614 as the second. I had both routers acting as DHCP servers for each piece of equipment connected to them, with the second router's WAN side getting an IP address from the first router. It all worked fine.

But now, with the DSL connected, the second router isn't seeing the internet. Netgear's customer service, (a guy in India, I think), told me I have to turn off DHCP service on the second router, and just allow it to act like a hub and wireless access point. But that still doesn't work. I've tried the reset button on the back, starting over, but it just doesn't seem to like the DSL service. I tried it back on the cable modem, and it works fine there, as the first or the second router. Unfortunately, I can't find anything on the Netgear site that addresses the problem. I'll try reloading the firmware (or upgrading if necessary) to see if that fixes the problem. But otherwise, it seems it won't work.

Otherwise, my new DSL service works fine. All our computers and networked devices have access to the internet and each other, including my VoIP, and networked printer devices. Maybe I'll pickup a plain wireless access point to use, instead of the WGR614 router. In the meantime, my laptop will have to use a cable connection.

When I ordered Sprint DSL last week, they informed me online:

Your order has been successfully processed and is scheduled to be activated by 7pm on 6/15/2005. There is an extremely remote possibility that due to unforeseen network or technical difficulties, you may have a delay... Should a Sprint technician be unable to resolve those difficulties, a Sprint representative will contact you prior to your scheduled activation date to notify you...

They followed up with two emails repeating the activation date of 6/15. But when I called them late yesterday, they said my activation date will be 6/16. They put me on hold for ten minutes to investigate why the date changed, only to come back and tell me it was always 6/16 in their records. No explanation, no apology, no DSL service.

The DSL modem, filters, and installation CD came on Tuesday, and I rewired the phone line to use all of this. My VoIP is line one (the first pair), and my landline is line two (the second pair), so things needed rewiring to install the filters on voice lines while delivering an unfiltered signal to the DSL modem. The filters expect the treated line to be L1, and so does the DSL modem, so I made up several L2-to-L1 cables and adapters. I have VoIP created at my desk, backfeeding the house, while the landline comes in from downstairs. So all of this goes through a junction box at my desk, now with an unfiltered side, and a filtered side. The unfiltered side is for the DSL modem, my fax machine, VoIP insertion, and a copy which gets filtered. Once filtered, that line is added to the VoIP pair to create the filtered side, to feed phones and in-service lights. Having DSL on the line requires filters to eliminate annoying high-frequency noise.