Well I hold DSL in high regard because:
1) Its cost is very comparable to cable on a monthly basis here in NZ!
2) I have to buy a DSL modem, whereas cable is rentable
3) As said - if a cable segment becomes overloaded, its costs lots to fix but DSL bandwidth problems can be fixed by changing routes on the ISP side (provided they are not running out of bandwidth)
4) DSL pings are better (well here in NZ anyways) and I, as an online gamer, appreciate a good ping time.
5) Here in NZ cable is not available everywhere, and if something on the segment goes wrong - one sometimes waits a while for it to be fixed.
6) DSL runs over a phone line and so is more widely available - although it does go down when the phone line goes down, my experience says phone lines get fixed much quicker!
Yes if you can get both cable and DSL, then perhaps number 5 does not apply. I did not realise cost differences were so much in the US, so maybe 1 and 2 do not apply to you yanks!
One last thing - thoots says the whole internet is shared bandwidth. This is ofcourse very true. But if one were to download things off microsoft, mp3.com, many of the major file download places, the bandwidth that THOSE places have across the internet is quite extreme. Some of us may have good connections at work, and I know I can get 200k/s or more at work, but only get 15k/sec at home.
Many places can give the transfer rates, but only if you are able to take it.
