DSL vs. cable: A comprehensive comparison

Abstract

Internet has become an integral part of today’s human life. Currently e-commerce is one of the fastest growing fields in the economy. While medium and large business establishments can afford dedicated links to connect to internet, small office, home office or residential users had to rely upon either dial-up connection or other low bandwidth connections to connect to the internet. An increasing need for faster Internet access for both home and home-office users has led to technologies like DSL and Cable. Though DSL and Cable are affordable and fulfill the needs of users for video and voice applications, several factors like distance from the service provider, number of active users on the terminal system or server, security and manageability in terms of maintaining connection(s) and equipment affect the quality of service. In this paper, the authors compare these two emerging technologies from both – service provider and customer’s perspective.