ngherardin

Distinguished
Apr 11, 2009
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18,510
Hi,
I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this question but I guess time will tell.

Here's my dilema:
In in Melbourne, Australia and am currently using cable internet on a 12GB per month cap plan.
For the price I am paying, I could change providers and get a 50GB per month cap plan for ADSL2.

I often go over my limit towards the end of the month.

My question is; is the speed difference between cable and adsl2 significantly different, keeping in mind that I don't use my computer for gaming, meerly browsing and downloading tv shows, and live streaming of sports games etc..

I have done a little bit of research and found out that my houseis located close(ish) to both the adsl and the cable 'hub' (not sure if that is the right terminology)

Any help or advice would be much appreciated.


Thanks in advance!
 

pulstar86

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Apr 25, 2009
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18,510
Go with ADSL2 since you live close to the service provider (though I believe you're connected to the telecom's office building and not the ISP). And since you're already capped (as most of the world will eventually be) a few kilobytes less wouldn't make much of a difference (worst case scenario you'll lose up to 15% of the maximum-and-impossible-to-attain speed).
 

sub mesa

Distinguished
Cable is bad in uploading and lots of packets per second (P2P, gaming), pick ADSL if you want that. ADSL is full-duplex technology, while most cable is half-duplex.

If your cable provider offers DOCSIS 3 technology, it would be a viable alternative. Cable is often cheaper and still offers good download speeds, making it an OK technology for use with streaming and mostly download applications, not upload. So in your case cable would be sufficient i guess.

But the quality of your ISP makes a huge difference too.