Dave Raymond wrote in a message to Bob Juge:
BJ> If you're lucky enough to have a modern cable company that offers
BJ> this, it's definitely the way to go.  However, if you happen to live
BJ> in a neighborhood that fills up with cable modem surfers, your
BJ> performance will decrease as more come online, as all are sharing the
BJ> same finite bandwidth over the common cable.
 DR> The "common cable" is fiber optic.  I don't see the cable as being
 DR> "limiting". :)  The only thing that I see as a limiting factor, is
 DR> the T1.
Even the cable is limited in its capacity.  What if your cable company 
suddenly decides to put another 300 channels online to compete with the 
satellite dish companies?  That would reduce the bandwidth available to cable 
modem users sharing the same cable.
You're certainly correct that the Internet bandwidth your cable company 
attaches to the cable is the main limiting factor, but be it T1 or T3, when 
1000 cable modem users are online and ftp'ing at one time, there will be 
1/100 the bandwidth available to each compared to when there were 10 online 
doing the same.  That's what I mean about the finite bandwith being shared 
among users.
BJ> xDSL is a nailed-down dedicated line with bandwidth that's fixed
BJ> and 100% exclusively yours 24 hours a day.  That's why it's more
BJ> expensive.  :-)
 DR> Please explain this further.  Doesn't it see the same thing at the
 DR> other end?
An ADSL connection is capable of up to 7Mbps speed (bandwidth) - and *all* of 
it is yours to use *all* the time.  You're not sharing it with anyone.  
Therefore you have to pay an ISP for the 24 hour dedicated bandwidth you use, 
whether you're at the keyboard or not.  If that's T1 speed (1.554 Mbps), 
you'd pay the going rate for that.  ADSL, like cable modems, is not switched 
technology (you don't "dial" anyone, you're connected 24 hours).
                                   - Bob
Internet  : bob@juge.com
Telnet, Vmodem, WWW or FTP to juge.com
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