CLAIMER - I design DSL equipment, have for six years.
The guy at the two-guy computer store is wrong about the sharing. DSL lines go
from central office to each home so each user is independent. Cable runs in a
daisy chain from house to house so everyone shares. He's sort of right about
the distance affecting speed. But it's because long runs of twisted pair phone
lines act as pretty serious low pass filters. They were designed to handle
voice at up to 8 KHz. Being able to deliver 1 MBit through them is pretty
amazing. So the further you are from the central office, the slower the max
speed you can expect. Then again, one of my co-workers lives three blocks from
the CO. He gets 6-8 MBits.
The Guy seems to have swapped and slightly mixed up the technologies. That
said, I live in the boonies, still on a 28.8 modem. I'd jump at either
technology.
Ken
-----Original Message-----
From: ext Scott Hall [mailto:sch8489@garnet.acns.fsu.edu]
the guy at the local two-guy computer shop told me just the opposite--with
dsl you 'share' x amount of bandwidth and how fast your connection depends
on how many other users are active on your line at the moment. as well,
he said your physical location on the line could affect speed, i.e. those
'upstream' from you (between you and the switching equipment) have 'dibs'
(my term) on the bandwidth and their use will more affect you than will
the use of those 'downstream' from you.
cable, he said, was pretty much constant no matter what.
now, I have absolutely no idea how true any of this is, but if anybody
knows I'd be interested in hearing the how's and why's and some theory if
you want to share. we just got dsl available out here and I've been
resisting because sprint (phone co. offering the service) requires you to
use (or at least pay for) earthlink. on the other hand, I'll probably be
the only dsl user on the node so it should rip.
I figure cable can't be too far behind, or else we'll finally move back
into civilization and I can have whatever I want.
scott
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