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The downside to having cable service is the shared bandwidth with other subscribers. Depending on the market penetration in your area, it might or might not pose as a problem. If a cable provider has been overly greedy and had oversubscribed their service without boosting their network capacity, then the end-users would definitely notice a degradation in performance during hours of peak usage. DSL has its own set of problems too. Distance from the central office (C.O.) determines the availability of service. The typical range is about 18,000 ft. That's why people living less than 1/8 of a mile from where I live have access to DSL service while I don't. Cable tends to give you better value for the money, that is if value is measured in bandwidth. Typical cable service is cheaper and also provides much greater download speeds than DSL. So, it's better for downloading mp3s and videos. If, however, you have a penchant for playing online FPS games, DSL might be the way to go. Shared bandwidth affects latency, and anyone who plays online FPS games knows how critical it is to have a decent ping. Before I signed up for my local cable service, I had heard from numerous gamers about the horrors of ping spikes which can occur during peak hours with cable service. Don't be mistaken: ping spikes do happen with DSL too, but apparently, not as frequently as cable. Unfortunately, DSL is not an option where I live, so I signed up for cable service the moment it became available in my area. For the first two months, the service was superb. Then, ping spikes started to show up during peak hours every couple days. It gradually got worse until I have intolerable ping spikes every evening from 7pm till midnight. It's very likely that the quality of my cable service has suffered as my cable provider eagerly snapped up myriad new subscribers. Calls to the cable company to address the problem has so far proven to be an exercise in futility. They told me since no one else has complained about latency problems, I just had to deal with it. That's not surprising: poor latency hardly affects download speeds or the ability to surf the web, and most users don't go online to play FPS games. However, with ping spikes happening every few minutes and ranging from 3000 ms to 4000 ms, my gaming experience has been a nothing but a nightmare. If you have no idea what "latency" or "ping" is, your best bet would be to go for the cheapest service with the fastest download speed. Most likely, that service would be cable. In any case, do check out both services before you commit.
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