You're on DSL, you share bandwidth. Could just be peak time in your neighborhood.

I think you have DSL and cable mixed up. A DSL connection is a straight shot to the DSLAM at your exchange.

Cable on the other hand lumps everyone in the same area together.

I thought the same thing, but then I did a little research. You are correct in that you have a dedicated line to the Central Office, but it is shared from there, so it depends on the bandwidth at the Central Office. The sharing just starts in a different place.

But that is a very important difference. With cable everyone in your neighborhood shares the same bandwidth pot. What they do directly effects each other. With DSL the central office typically has thousands of connections so the effect is (or should be) much less pronounced. In fact with a half decent provider you should never see the type of slowdown that's common with cable.

Not to mention the fact that cable also goes to a central office and so in addition to neighbourhood issues, you also have all the same potential central office connection issues of DSL.

I agree, the performance will depend the bandwidth of the central office. If it's halfway decent, you shouldn't see a degradation in performance with DSL. We have cable, and it may just be where we live, but I have yet to see a slowdown, people must not be online using much cable bandwidth in our area.

Maybe it is just bandwith? IN any case, I only notice it when I'm tryin gto upoload a large file to the server for podcasting. I'll just do that in the middle of the night from now on.

When my roomie gets back later this month, we'll see what issues she or I may have since she will be using wireless in the apartment. I won't be wireless untill I can afford a new PC.

It might be useful to try running a speedtest from time to time. Pick a server geographically close to you. See if the speed test varies based on the time of day. This will also show the disparity between the download and upload speeds.

Very cool link, thanks for the tip!

You think eh? How diplomatic. No, you are right GD has them quite reversed.

With DSL your actual distance from a switching sub station is the main issue & at the edges of coverage the signal gets more and more unreliable untill they can't garantee faster speeds.

Oh were I to have a phone company switch close enough to my place to provide decent bandwith I would be all over it. But alas they have had my area listed as DSL "comming soon" for as long as I can remember bah!

Before the TimeWarner takeover I couldn't complain much about my cable internet service. It has in the past provided decen't speeds and whenever they did have slowdowns associated with more subscribers they would add another node to handle traffic beter. Now that they have merged yet again what do I get but additonal bandwith caps, crappy peak hour speeds and daily outtages etc. etc.

Screw you Time Warner I want to be rid of your shamefully poor service and roast your crap partner that freaking roadrunner this thanksgiving.

I feel for you Tramspotter. monopolies never give good service. Then again I have access to cable, top-tier DSL (the POP is 1/4 away) and Silly speed fiber (Fios) and still can't get good service.