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.