Viewing Photo's online, Cable Service?

[JZaun]

I am not happy with my online service it is just too slow :evil: I hate having to wait for pic's to download and when there are several, I quite often give up and go to another post. Some peoples pic's seem to load faster than others, I guess it is their server. Now the real question

Does anyone here use cable service? I know it is faster but is it worth the cost ? (Your opinion) Is it that much faster than dial up considering the load on some servers out there?

Cable will cost me about $45 a month here and I have to buy a cable modem $80. I am currently spending $14.95 for great service but would like more speed.

Anyone have any information or feelings about this??

Thanks
JZaun

[Scottes]

I love cable. My cable service (Comcast in Mass) give 3 meg download, which is theoretically fantastic, but something like 384 upload. Since I run my own webserver this is less than ideal, but that's probably not a concern to you.

The 3 meg download is the absolute max - a single average user will rarely see it, since almost no website will send to them at 3 meg. It does make a difference if you have multiple users or if you like to multi-browse. When waiting for one message to load I might also be in another forum or another site. I have absolutely no patience, so I flip back and forth a lot.

To compare cable to a dial-up modem is not a comparison. Cable is much, much faster. On an *average* site you will probably get 500-1000 Mb/s download speed. Compare to a 56K modem and you're running 9-18 times faster. If you manage to hit an idle server with a very good connection to the Internet you may actually get 3 Mb/s, but that's very rare. On the other end if you try browsing at the same time everyone else on your cable segment is browsing then that 3 meg number will go down quite a bit.

But it's still going to be a hell of a lot faster than a dial-up modem. Personally I think it's worth every penny. But the Internet is my job, one of my hobbies, and I also run my own web server and mail server out of my house. I'm not average. In fact I spent about 1.5 years paying $129 a month for a 1.5 Mb/s DSL line. And I thought that was worth every penny, too.

[ajax]

I had a relatively speedy dial-up service for years. They sold out and their service suffered dramatically.

So, I held my breath and signed up for cable [comcast].

I am sooo glad I did! I was paying for a separate phone line, so the cost was only a bit more. I like it for the speed, as well as the fact that it is always "on", so it's convenient for quicky things. I find it far more reliable than the dial-up [though that could be due to my dial-up provider].

[IanD]

Jerry,
Believe it or not we actually have cable up here in Canada :lol:
Do not even think about it, just sign up for cable. It is worth the cost. Once you try it you will never go back to dial-up. The only problem is when you are on the road and cannot find a hotel/motel with HS and have to revert to dial-up. Very painful :cry:

[Laziferous]

I also have comcast, and I'd rather have no internet connection, than have to go back to dial-up. 3 mbps is just too good to let go.

[CoolToolGuy]

I have cable, and I like it. I've never had dial-up myself, so I can't compare to that.
If you get cable access, a firewall is a must, especially if you leave the PC up all the time.
I also found out after several months of frequent reboots that the cable modem (if you are USB) must be plugged into the PC, not a USB hub.

Have Fun
Rick 8)