This is a very common question asked
by most people looking for high speed home and business Internet connections. Depending
on who you ask, you will get very different stories. There is no shortage
of both horror stories and praise for both technologies. And that, unfortunately,
is the answer - neither Cable nor DSL is better all the time. It depends
completely on your local providers.
Despite what some companies would like you to believe, DSL connections
are shared Internet connections. With cable connections you share the
connection to your ISP with your neighbors and it is true, with DSL
you do not and so have your own private connection to your ISP. However,
at the ISP all their users share the ISP's connection to the Internet.
This applies to cable, DSL, satellite, dial-up… everything.
As a consumer shopping for a connection your best bet is to talk
to people in your area who own the connections you're considering. Cable
is highly dependent on the neighborhood and DSL is highly dependent
on the physical distance from your house to the nearest ISP CO (central
office). This means that experiences vary not only from city to city
but even inside the city and inside the same provider. In addition to
transmission speed you have to consider price, installation time, and
customer support, all factors that depend on the ISPs, not the technology.