cabel vs adsl

[corosus]

hi,
in the student house where i live we are planning to get an internetconection and schare the cost.
it is a quite populated area (brussels) and right now the debate is cable(coax) vs adsl. as you can see below adsl is a litle more expecive but on the site the adsl provide boasts about speeds of 3mbps while the cable's provide website gives me 1024 Kbps. the adsl would be using a router the cabel is using a server running debian. and there would be 7 people hooked up to the lan for email msn an some html surfing.
i would like to hear your thought on the subjet, what would all of you chose????
thank you
prices are in euro's
cable<=> adsl

instalation 0 <=> 19
modem 49 <=> 60
monthly cost39,5+16.5 <=>39,54


total 523 <=> 751,48
monthly payments/person 5, <=>8, startingcost/person 8, <=> 13,

[Byte 2.0]

I am wondering which ADSL provider is currently offering 3000kbps down.

In my experience cable can be more reliable in some areas, while in others DSL(ADSL) is better.

Which every one you get, talk to them and see what the grace period is to cancel if you are not happy with it.

Call both of their Tech supports, see how much hold time you have.

Find out from each, what repair cost could be if a tech has to be send out to fix a problem.(both should be free as long as the problem is not in your equipment or your Line inside the home(apartment).

Make sure the modem costs they are oftering are for Ethernet type modems.

With both you will most likely get no support for running your own router and for trouble shooting both may ask you to disconnect the router.

If the ADSL has say a 30 day grace to cancel with out penity I would say go ADSL then if it does not work out go cable.

With 7 of you, you will need the most brandwidth you can get.

Ask what the upload cap is, most residental are about 256kbps up. with 7 of you, u will have slow downs because of your upload speed. I know 1472kbps down by 256kbps up is decent for 1-4 PCs for average home use.

Here at my house I have cable normally about 1500kbps by 256kbps but they are doing a stress test on the servers and uncapped the area to 3000kbps by 256kbps. personally i would have liked more upload.

I know i jumped all over the topic, it must be the meds kicking in. I hope this was helpful.

[corosus]

tha adsl provider is belgacom ( a local belgian provider)
thank you for the reply it was verry helpful especialy in adressing some issues i had not thought of yet.

i just called the company who supplyed the modem and that type is out of stock and is not comming back thenext cheapest one is 79euro.
i still however have a usb alcatel speedtouch lying around,, i was thinking of plugging that into my server(debian), that way i could also equaly devide bandwith amongst those who are using it; does linux support usb adsl modems??? i know that almost year ago they didn't, but a year is a long time i computer development


*edit: ok i found it, the modem is supposed to support linux, still wondering wether those drivers ae anny good??*

[Byte 2.0]

I know for a USB modem the Alcatel is a decent USB model, but as far as i know it is windows/mac only. I am sure there is probably a way to make it work on linux.

I would still recommand ethernet modems over USB for any OS.

[gunrunnerjohn]

I'll modify that by saying that I STRONGLY recommend Ethernet based broadband modems over USB for the reliability and flexibility they offer. USB is not designed to be a network transport, and it shows when you use it enough.

[Byte 2.0]

look at my sig.

"USB ports, Jack of all trades, Master of none."

[gunrunnerjohn]

Your sig isn't showing up.

[corosus]

i know usb is not perfect, but if i hook u the usb modem now i can beging saving up for the ethernet based modem, i'm still in shool and don't exactly have a lot of cash to spare right now.

[glc]

If you have to use a USB modem now, you may want to hook it to a Windows box and share it out from that. This is pretty easy and reasonably reliable with Win2K or XP.

[corosus]

yes, it would be easyer, but z friend of mine who's into linux development has offered to help me install the modem, so i gues that will not be a problem. and the linux server has been running stabaly without anny reboot or downtime for 3 months now, i still have to see anny windows based machine do that.
the connection has been cable so far, but the person who's name the subscription was in, and who's room the modem is in, is moving out so..... (and yes taking over her subscription would be significantly more expensiver thantaking a new one in my name

[glc]

The question is, does Linux support USB modems?

[corosus]

i found this with sugest that it does:
http://www.linux-usb.org/SpeedTouch/
i'm not that experienced with linux (unfortuatly), but as i have a firend who is willing to help me, and he is an expert.