Just a look at the technical side of things....

Cable internet access is a shared access medium - kinda like the water line in your neighborhood. So, it's like Cox has a single line running to each of the homes in your neighborhood. Cable will operate at its optimal speed when no one is using it. Back to the water example... if everyone in the neighborhood is running a large bath, the pressure won't be as great (well, im sure the water company has a way to fix that, but... it's a simple example! )

DSL access requires running a single line from your home to the telco's Colo - So you basically have a "dedicated" line. This would seem to be faster, but it too depends on how many people in your neighborhood use this provider! if you have 100 dedicated lines coming in, you can imagine the speed will decrease.

soooo, it all depends on your area (and your provider!) -  if there are too many DSL subscribers in your area, then your speed may be slower than cable, and vice versa ::insert nerdy face here::

In our area, we do not have a cable provider (comcast doesn't like serving the rural areas ), so everyone has DSL and in peak times, the speeds crawl

Anyhow, hope this helps!!

It doesn't matter how many subscriber's there are in a neighborhood - a dedicated line is specifically for your connection only ... the decrease in speed is determined by how far away you are from the "Cross-Connect" box, and how far away the cross-connect is from the CO (Central Office) of the phone company.

I saw my friend's DSL in action Sunday - the speed was decently comparable to my cable-modem, of which it suits him and his needs ... however, for everything I do, it's much slower and I wouldn't be happy ... maybe I will get lucky enough to move way out into the country and get a high-speed satellite link-up.

I've got a 286 modem somewhere around

It's USRobotics so it's quality stuff

PM me you're offer TA and this little beauty could be yours

We dont get cable down here in Africa Ive always wanted cable cause of the download speeds... this is the stuff i had to study to be a pc engineer... made me so envious of you foreign foke We do however get ADSL, which is as fast as it gets down here, if you have money you can get 1024 coneection which kicks ass but downloading is always a mission. Our whole office is linked to it and i still get 56kb/s download speeds... sometimes.... which is cool. i think you guys are far ahead of us though, three years ahead last time i checked. 

Be warned though, your adsl will be functioning in sync with your phone company... we are run by telkom, they are idiots and we lose internet at least once a week "due to people working on lines" so be careful with that... you will go mad. T1 is the way forward, a dedicated line is my dream connection, guaranteed connection speeds.. wow. Cable is good as far as my books can tell, although they are more susceptable to interference than adsl and do run the risk of dropping your connection randomly. adsl is only stuffed up by stupid phone companies that cant maintain damn lines!!! (im fairly grumpy, i only got online at 14:30, because "they were working on lines"... and then blamed our lack of connection on the router... which we got from them and then they said it was the modem... i agreed... then after hanging up, realised the router was the modem.... waited 15min on the phone listening to elevator music and gave up... now im online) my cellphones edge is more reliable! rant over

Now that was a good read!

I have Verizon DSL (768 kbs).  Last summer there FIOS (fiber optic service)(5MB) became available.  My neighbor acros the street had Comcast cable.  My DSL was faster than his Comcast.  A friend of mine, who downloads massive files, changed to FIOS from Comcast.  She says they are equivalent and complained about Comcast being slow 5-9 p.m.  FIOS is being offerred for $39.99 for 3 moths and then $49.99.  My DSL was $37.99 a month, but I just agreed to a one year contract that cuts it to $21.99 for the first three months and $23.99 the remaining nine.  This option is not necessarily renewable.  I had a similar offer the year before last.  Verizon has a faster DSL that is $34.99 per month.  FIOS email is definitely faster than Comcast.  768kbs meets my needs.