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currently I have a 10Mbps DSL line and I'm thinking to switch to a cable since they got 100Mbps for a little less than double the price I'm paying for 10Mbps.

In other words the cable company is offering 100Mbps for the price of 20Mbps DSL.

Since 10Mbps is more than enough for me I am worried about the latency, I saw this that is just a guy experiment, that shows that cable and DSL are the same in practical terms, and this but I couldn't grasp it, not sure if it is helpful.

So my question is if there's any practical difference between cable and DSL, mainly in latency terms but I would be also interested in other advantages/disadvantages.

This is for my home connection, I work from home but I don't run any server, I most of the time code, skype and eventually game.

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2 Answers 2

up vote 2 down vote accepted

You cannot measure latency with ICMP ping, on different routes! The inconsistent times explanation of cable (and DSL andvantages compared to cable) in that article just blew my brain.

Both technologies can be almost the same, if channel-infrastructure was made by white hands. All other aspects are small details. Anyway, you have to run live-tests some time for real testing, but I think, you lost nothing with cable.

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I subscribe to a cable ISP, and I have no issue (latency or speed or etc) with my 60Mbps connection.

But maybe not all companies maintain their network as good.

So I suggest you to read reviews about each company/provider that you're comparing.

If your 10Mbps is enough for you, why paying the double for almost nothing? Because between a 8Mbps and a 60Mbps, I didn't saw a difference in page loading time, rather in 2 cases :
Loading long a video. Downloading a huge file.

My latency is top-notch, and the DSL provider in my region offer the same latency.

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I would pay more because is a good offer, I would have better speed downloading/streaming and maybe the latency is better –  tovmeod Mar 23 '12 at 0:14
If you want, go ahead. I understand you, I did the same thing last year, and even if it cost me a lot more, I don't regret –  Nettogrof Mar 23 '12 at 2:36

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