I'm using cable ISP in Canada and have a cap of 20 kb/s for u/l. Last year it was reduced from 45 to 20.

I am considering Bell Canada (Sympatico) DSL. I had a trial once and the u/l cap was 15, but now they have a faster version

The normal hi speed advertised max is 1Mb/s d/l and 120 kb/s u/l (but it had a 15 kb/s cap when I tried it last year)

The ultra hi speed is said to be 3Mb/s d/l and 640 kb/s u/l

I asked a saleman on the phone what the "cap" was and he just said "huh?"

It seems that you can use other DSL ISP's over the telephone lines, many do not talk about speed on their web site, only price. I suppose part of it is the condx o the phone lines. Ultra hi speed is delivered in my area, but over standard copper lines.

My questions:

Any B1 members have experience comparing the performance of these various services? i.e. cable vs DSL; u/l caps, etc.

What is the significance of the max u/l speed if there is a cap?

i have DSL, and my mom has cable. they both have their advantages and disadvantages really. cable can be slow if a lot of people on cable in your area are downloading, uploading, etc., whereas a dsl line is dedicated for you, what others are downloading won't affect your connection.

caps vary by isp. my dsl is capped at 1500/256, which is 150k download and 25k upload.

given the choice between the two, usually i would pick dsl, because it's a dedicated line. but, if you can get faster speeds from cable for the same price or less, then go for that.

for their ultra high speed, you would probably get around 290 - 300k down, and 60-65k up, which for the price, that's not bad at all. what they mean by cap is just how high you can go. you're capped at 3000/650, meaning you can't expect speeds of 4000/1000. your max upload speed under ideal conditions, good line quality, good routing, etc. would be 65k, what you're capped at.

another place you can look is here:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/sympat

and see what other users say about that isp :)

In uk, all cable companys are faster then dsl companys because of the material used, dsl uses copper and cable uses fibre so the speed is a little better for example a 512k connection on dsl would download at 55-60k but a cable can hit 80-120k...this is in uk tho so I don't really know what material is used in the Canada.

I've never had DSL, only 56K and then cable. I know a friend of mine tried DSL and kept his cable while testing the DSL line. It seems he was close to the node on the cable connection so of course his cable speeds were better. The cost was also better for the cable connection. My cable company says I have a cap of 15kbps but as they added more users I seen that drop down to around 10-8kbps. I spent about an hour on the phone with them and now I get around 25kbps. :D

that really depends on where you are, dsl can be used over fiber too, it just isn't available in all areas.

A good FAQ on hi-speed isp's. Thanks, guys. The sympatico forum is very helpful too, Sephiroth.

Thanks much.

I decided not to make the choice and am going with both, The cable company always caps here and with dsl at least I have a choice. The cable tries to stay at 1.5down and 256 up, but uploads never even get close to that. The dsl offers 1.5down and 768up, so thats where the server will be hooked up, while the everday computers will be hooked up to cable. I am going to try this for a year and see what happens.

Gosh, you must have a lot of money. I wish I could have both. Or instead, i'd go with a T3 ;)