[ale] Re-send: Opinions on Cable versus DSL

[Jay Finch]

Hey everyone,

I know this question has been asked a million and one times, but being that 
the technology has changed so much in the past few months and I'm only now 
becoming concerned with it, I wanted some opinions.

I've been a Charter Comm. Cable Modem subscriber for about 3 years now, and 
have had pretty good service.  It's been fairly peppy, but I hate how it 
goes down when it rains (without fail) and other weird routing and downtime 
issues.  I just got a notice from BellSouth that I'm (finally!) eligible 
for DSL service.

What I want to know is this: How reliable is DSL vs. Cable?  What about the 
speeds?  (I generally get 1.5MB download and 128k upload on Cable fairly 
consistently, depending on I-net traffic.)

Additionally, I'm using a Linux box as my firewall/gateway, and I have a 
Static IP with Charter right now.  I know that Mindspring & Bellsouth both 
use PPPoE with DHCP as a standard, but Mindspring offers a Static IP for 
$15 extra a month.

I want a static IP.  From y'alls experience: Do Mindspring and Bellsouth 
refresh their IPs often enough to warrant asking for a static one?  (I have 
several DNS mappings to my home machine right now.)

And finally, I know that neither "support" Linux -- I know my stuff fairly 
well in getting a box configured, but how much of a bear is it to configure 
for DSL vs. Cable?  (And is there a "better" DSL ISP for Linux? I'm trying 
to keep my costs around $50-$60/month, which is what I'm paying for my 
Cable Modem right now.)

Thanks in advance for y'alls help.  :~)

Cheers!
Jay


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