How fast exactly IS Cable. Many of my friends say they can download a 5mb file in 40 seconds! Is this true!? Oh yeah how much is cable anyway (in Australian $$$).

Goku I am in Melbourne and use Optus Cable so I will tell you about this which is also available in Sydney.

Optus Cable runs at 300kb/s meaning that you can download a 5mb file in a very short amount of time. What many people lack to mention to others is that a lot of sites are restricted so even if you have a very fast connection speed you will probably not go faster than around 40kb/s (which is still very fast). Surfing speed on the other hand is pretty much instantaneous.
Optus cable costs $195 to instal and $75 a month meaning that your first bill will come to roughly $275. They give you free phone line rental though which is another good thing saving you $12 a month.

This might seed a lot but it kinda depends on how much you log on and how important your connection is to you. When I had dial-up I used to pay $25 a month for my dial up connection and $12 for my phone line. I used to connect a LOT so taking in consideration the amount I payed for the dial-up, phone line and phone calls to log on the net I used to pay well over $60 a month and sometimes reach insane figures. Optus cable on the otherhand only costs $63 a month if you take in consideration that you get free phone line rental so to me that was the best option. Best thing you can do is work out how much you pay all up and see what is really more convenient for you. At any rate though, nothing can match what I have now compared to my dial up [img]smile.gif[/img]

Living in the USA (Maryland) I have comcast cable, my downloads used to run at 1.5 to 2 megabits per second but now I top out at 750k
my up loads ont he other hand are maxed out at 128k

Ze cable...she is a nice!

Cable and DSL are very similar, except that DSL requires the use of a phone line and isn't available everywhere, whereas cable requires the use of coax cable (like CATV) and has a wider availability, especially in remote locations. Two drawbacks to cable are: 1) the bandwidth isn't guaranteed; it's "fixed" for a block of addresses, meaning that the more people use it, the lower the bandwidth per user, and 2) many cable companies don't allow service to only one person unless an entire block of addresses needs the service. At least that's how it is here in the U.S. (well, Texas). DSL, on the other hand, has a guaranteed bandwidth, but you have to be within 3 miles of the DSL "signal" to be able to receive it, and you have to have decent phone lines. (The old analog ones from way back won't cut it.) I have DSL at 768K downlink, and 384K uplink, and pay roughly about $40 a month for it. Friends of mine who have cable pay about the same amount and get about the same service, so I really don't think there's much difference.

One thing is for certain: once you go "broadband", you can't go back to 56K. ;) (Well, you *can* technically, but no one wants to! :D )

Hi Gokuzool [img]smile.gif[/img] . I have Telstra broadband cable. It's fast, much faster than my old dial-up connection, and usually reliable (just recently it's been down a couple of times, but they fix it quick). It is expensive, Telstra have just recently raised the price for broadband by 7-8% (or something), for me it's about $80 a month, though we're on the highest threshold, if you use it less it'll be cheaper. But it works out quite similar to dial-up because you don't have to pay for phone calls (except the initial installation fee).

Just the fact that I do not have to dial out anymore, makes it much more worthwhile than 56k dialup. You need to have a good firewall, though.


Mark

my cable costs me about $35.00a month with unlimited access.my speed is about the same as MagiK.and let me tell ya,you will hate to go back to anything slower.as for dsl,it is a little slower than cable but not enough to sweat about.so if you have a choice between the two,go for which ever is cheaper.