I know I Posted info about being a Notary Public and I am very serious about that but if you read my Thread, you would have also acknowledged that I had a day job with a "Major Telecommunications Corp." well I'm not going to devulge what company however I would think that most of you use us for your Phone Service and possibly Cell Service as well.
My job in this company is Tech Support for DSL Service which by the way stands for Digital Subscriber Line. We offer actually ADSL > which is Asymmetrical meaning the Down Stream is unequal to the Up Stream flow. Some companies as well as ours also offer SDSL > Symmetrical meaning both UP & DOWN is the same.
Example: 768k up & down
Our Standard Service is 768k - 3.0mb down and 256k up. which cost in my State a whopping $39.95 monthly. The variance between the low end of the downstream and high end is due to the distance you are from what is called the D-Slam.
That is located in the Central Office that feeds the signal to your house. Depending on distance from that location and also the condition of your telephone line can determine how fast your down speed will be. The main cutoff for CO feed is 12,000 ft. If you are beyond that distance from the CO, you will most likely be fed from what is known as a Remote Stations. Which is simply a small transmitting station that gets a boosted signal feed from the CO and then pushes it out to people who live further than 12,000 ft from the CO.
My take is that DSL & Cable are a coin flip. You make your choice based upon price because stability has little to do with it. Both services had their pros & cons. I have DSL currently because I get it at an employee's price rate. And also I live a 1/4 mile from the nearest CO.
JACK .. when you call the phone company, ask them to tell you how far you are from the CO or RT. If they say you are within 5,000 ft. GET IT !!!
If you are beyond 5,000 ft but less than 12,000 call the Cable Company and see what's up there.