DSL speed in apartment building

[Lee]

Thinking about moving into an apartments that comes with Internet, Qwest DSL. Isn't DSL slower the more people who are connected to it? Not sure how it works, but I would assume everyone in the building shares the line. I am assuming the service would suck, anyone have any experience with this kind of thing?

[papasmurff]

yes.... and it depends.

In my last apartment the IT guy had the buildings set up to share the bandwidth.  This is where you run into a situation where the more people you have on, the slower the connection.  Others, have a specific bandwidth allotment where regardless of how many people were connected, everyone got an equal share of the pie.  The idea behind the first way is that the apartment complex would need fewer internet lines because demand never remains constant (there is always someone not using the internet).  The problem was around finals time or about every 4 weeks, there would be days were the internet would just crawl because everybody was on trying to get shit done.

I ended up getting my own dsl line installed for about 35.00 a month and said screw the shared lines.

The other problem i experienced was the apartment's security levels were horrible for gaming.  They had it so locked down AIM wouldn't work, live wouldn't work, you couldn't stream video (netflix, hulu, etc...), and you couldn't go to youtube.

Really it all depends how it is setup

[Lee]

Yikes, you are scaring me.

Was that a free thing? I should add this place adds $75/month for phone, satellite TV, and internet. The TV is through Dish and I can pay more for a DVR, HD, etc so I can customize it. The place is still being built and the rep doesn't know how the phone and DSL through Qwest is going to work yet. She told me I cannot bring my own services, you have to use the apartments, so I wonder if it's going to be a shared thing or not. I couldn't handle crappy internet for a year no matter how nice the apartments are.

[TiLT]

If it's not shared, you'll be fine. You won't notice much of a difference as a single user between DSL and cable.

If it's shared, you're in for some serious pain. The shared/not shared situation is what you need to figure out. Whether or not it's DSL has less impact.

[morlac]

If it's not shared, you'll be fine. You won't notice much of a difference as a single user between DSL and cable.

Except for the whole speed factor.  DSL is much slower than Cable, at least in my area.  18 mbps max vs 10 mbps max.  I switched from DSL to cable and paid the same price per month for roughly twice the speed.

[papasmurff]

i think the rep is mistaken... this sounds exactly like how my last apartment handled it.  The apartment complex was built with ethernet ports in every room.  Their approved phone carrier was ATT.  I called ATT and ordered my own DSL line.  As long as you use the company they have their phone contracts with, I would think there isn't much they can do.  Especially since you can add your own services to dish.  My argument would be, I don't want to use the shared network (they will still make you pay the added amount), I want to add my own DSL just as if I were adding DVR or HD to dish.

all qwest would have to do is add the service to the phone line and send you a modem...   The nice thing about having your own is when the apartment's shits out you will still have internet.  This happened to me several times.... I had friends from other buildings coming over because the network went down and they needed something....

[TheAtomicKid]

Could always set the apartment network up as the backup link, if your router is smart enough to support that configuration...

Atomic

[TiLT]

Except for the whole speed factor.  DSL is much slower than Cable, at least in my area.  18 mbps max vs 10 mbps max.  I switched from DSL to cable and paid the same price per month for roughly twice the speed.

DSL can reach some pretty damn fast speeds, but you need to live reasonably close to the central.

[morlac]

Except for the whole speed factor.  DSL is much slower than Cable, at least in my area.  18 mbps max vs 10 mbps max.  I switched from DSL to cable and paid the same price per month for roughly twice the speed.

DSL can reach some pretty damn fast speeds, but you need to live reasonably close to the central.

What's odd is that I had my DSL with ATT and maxed out at 8-10 mbps (can't quite remember) but when  I switched to ATT Uverse I was able to get 18 mbps for the same price even.  Different tech and all that but still wass kinda funny.

[TiLT]

Except for the whole speed factor.  DSL is much slower than Cable, at least in my area.  18 mbps max vs 10 mbps max.  I switched from DSL to cable and paid the same price per month for roughly twice the speed.

DSL can reach some pretty damn fast speeds, but you need to live reasonably close to the central.

What's odd is that I had my DSL with ATT and maxed out at 8-10 mbps (can't quite remember) but when  I switched to ATT Uverse I was able to get 18 mbps for the same price even.  Different tech and all that but still wass kinda funny.

They probably offered the same speed for the same price, but DSL quality degrades quickly as the distance from the central increases. Also keep in mind that there are several different DSL technologies. There's a big difference between ADSL and VDSL, for example.

[morlac]

They probably offered the same speed for the same price, but DSL quality degrades quickly as the distance from the central increases.

Nope.  That is their advertised speeds.  Fastest DSL they offered was 8-10, fasted Uverse speed was 18.

[TiLT]

They probably offered the same speed for the same price, but DSL quality degrades quickly as the distance from the central increases.

Nope.  That is their advertised speeds.  Fastest DSL they offered was 8-10, fasted Uverse speed was 18.

Well, at least you got what they advertised then.

Around here I can easily get VDSL with speeds of up to 40 mpbs (at least from the one provider I just checked. There's lots of choice, so others might offer something better).