DSL v Cable. Which is Better?

By Gerry Morris

Dialup Internet access is just about obsolete for business use. Broadband Internet service is now available almost everywhere anyone would want a law office. Larger offices or those with special needs for high speed Internet service may subscribe to a T1 line or other high capacity technology. However, most of us use the Internet just for email and access to the Word Wide Web. For that type of usage the more widely used broadband services are sufficient. In most urban areas a business user has the choice of two competing technologies; DSL or cable. If you have a choice, which one is better for you? Here are some considerations.

The two technologies are quite different and their differences may affect their suitability at a particular location. DSL stands for “digital subscriber line”. Digital information is transmitted over regular telephone lines and made available to your computer network through a splitter and a DSL modem. The splitter separates the digital signal from the analogue voice signal and the modem handles the communications between the DSL system and your computer network. Nowadays, the splitter is actually something that you just plug in to your phone line rather than the gadget that the phone company, in the past, had install for a fee. Most DSL service (and cable service) is asymmetrical which simply means that the download speed it much faster than the upload speed. That’s because most of us are much more interested in a web site fully downloading quickly to our browser than in having our emails go out a fraction of a second faster. Since there is only so much bandwidth available it is allocated mostly to downloading rather than uploading. (Some providers offer symmetrical service at a higher cost for users that require more upload speed.)

In the late 1990s and early 2000s DSL was not available everywhere. Even in central Austin, where I practice and lived at the time there were areas where there was either no DSL service or only very slow service. DSL is available only within about 2.5 kilometers of a telephone switching station with the proper equipment. The speed of the service deteriorates as the distance increases. In the older Austin neighborhood where I used to live, the phone lines were old and the switching equipment not up to date. For several years I could not get good DSL service. Consequently, I had to subscribe to my cable provider’s Internet service at a slightly higher price. Unfortunately, the cable infrastructure in that neighborhood wasn’t in great shape either thanks to fallen tree limbs and squirrels. However, by the mid 2000s things were fixed so that either type service was fast and reliable.

Cable companies transmit the digital information over, well, the cable. Even with a couple of hundred TV channels there is still a lot of Internet bandwidth available on conventional coaxial cable systems and fiber optic networks now being utilized by some companies provide even more capacity. Cable systems utilize a modem that connects to the same cable outlet as your TV and interfaces with the computer network. Generally, if there is television cable available in a block or neighborhood, there is also cable Internet access available.

There is no distance from the station limitation with cable. The only technical drawback to cable Internet access is that the system is arranged in a series of loops. One loop may include all or part of a neighborhood. There is a finite amount of bandwidth available to the loop, so, if several users on the loop are accessing the Internet at the same time the speed of the individual connections slows down. In my experience, this problem exists mostly in the minds of the cable company’s competitors. It’s mentioned prominently in their advertisements but I’ve never experienced any noticeable slowdown in my cable connections. Most if not all cable providers guarantee a minimum speed for uploading and downloading. The true speed usually far exceeds the minimum.

As a general rule, cable connections are faster than DSL, but, DSL is also generally cheaper per month. To compare prices and speeds, I’ll use AT&T Yahoo’s DSL business Internet services. The package offering 1.5 Mbps downstream speed and 384 Kbps upstream speed is $35.00 per month. Twice the download speed and 512 Kbps upload is $45.00 per month, The top of the line package featuring 6 Mbps downstream speed and 768 Kbps is $55.00 per month. The slowest cable business package available in my area from Time Warner Cable Road Runner is about the speed of the fastest AT&T DSL package. The cost for the cable service is about $100 per month. Each service offers a set number of email addresses, space for a web site, etc.

So, why would anyone choose the more expensive cable service? One reason might be the unavailability of the higher speed DSL service at a particular location or the unavailability of DSL at all. If the address to be services is not within about 2.5 kilometers of the switching equipment, DSL won’t be available. If the equipment hasn’t been modernized recently, the quality of the telephone lines poor or the distance from the switching station approaching the limit, the speeds available might not be top notch. I found that the slower DSL speeds didn’t fit the needs of my office, primarily because I like to access my network from my home or hotel via my laptop and use Windows Remote Desktop to access my office desktop computer remotely. This requires decent upload speed at my office to make the remote access useable. For several years I subscribed to the AT&T Yahoo package for with the 512 Kbps upload speed. I found this upstream speed to be adequate but perhaps a little slow for remote access. The fastest DSL speeds were not available at my office until fairly recently. I was contemplating upgrading but another factor caused me to switch to cable even though it costs me an extra $45 a month.

I found that the biggest drawback to my DSL access was having to deal with a phone company for service. AT&T Yahoo DSL service would periodically change things on their system such as requiring different security settings to use their outgoing mail server. On the AT&T Yahoo system a user has no choice but to use AT&T’s outgoing servers. This is to help prevent their servers being used by spammers. The latest security changes were intended to make it even harder for unauthorized users to send mail over their servers. However, the changes were made with little or no prior warning. On several occasions we suddenly lost the ability to send email in the middle of a business day. Calls to AT&T Yahoo’s service representative were, to say the least, unhelpful. To find a solution to the problem I would have to Google the error messages I received to find blog entries from other users who had experienced the same issue. I found that the blogosphere was more helpful than AT&T Yahoo support for finding a solution to the problem. After several instances of interruptions of outgoing mail, I changed to a cable provider.

Of course, not every DSL provider will have the same technical issues and poor customer service. The point is that in a busy office fixing a problem in a hurry is important. In my experience, I’ve found that the technical support technicians at my local cable company are much more attentive to my technical issues than were those employed by my former DSL provider. Time Warner cable has excellent technical assistance provided by local technicians. There is also an account executive in charge of my account that we found to be accessible and helpful during the setup process.

On Time Warner Cable Road Runner, we are able to use the outgoing mail servers provided to us by our domain hosting service, FutureQuest. Since Time Warner does not require the use of its outgoing mail servers on the Road Runner network, clients who bring there laptops to my office can access my wireless network and send email with the outgoing server that they ordinarily use. With AT&T Yahoo, they could send email only if they were configured to use that company’s servers. This was a small issue but somewhat of an annoyance. More importantly, so far the cable access is faster and more reliable.

It would pay to check the blogs to determine overall satisfaction with a provider before signing up. Reliable service and technical support may be worth paying a premium price. The more we rely on email and other Internet services, the more costly interruptions are.

E. G. “Gerry” Morris is a small firm practitioner and has practiced law for over 29 years in Austin, Texas. He is certified as a Criminal Law Specialist by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. His firm web site is at www.egmlaw.com. Email your comments and questions to Gerry at tech@egmlaw.com.