Telecommuters: Cable Or Highspeed Dialup?

As a work-at-home freelance writer, I love being on cable. Downloads are ultrafast, even over my wireless network. Except during “rush hour”. That is, during those hours when commuters have returned home from work, or students from school and do their daily surfing. Depending on where you are, that’s probably around 4:00-6:00 pm and 10:00 pm – 12 midnight. Or whenever your neighbour decides to download large files.

That’s the problem with cable. Speed varies inversely by demand. High-speed dialup, on the other hand, never changes in speed. But its speed is typically slower than cable’s fastest. The problem is that if your connection speed drops, not only will your web browsing slow down but your VoIP call quality may degrade as well. However, highspeed dialup isn’t always available. Where I live, the neighbourhood is old enough (21 years) that the phone company says they cannot put in “data” lines. I’ve called them almost every year since the late 1990s to check, and they still don’t offer it. So my remaining choices are cable, satellite, or cellular wireless.

I’ve had satellite TV in another locale and it sucked whenever there was a storm. I can’t remember if I had satellite Internet then, but I do remember it cutting out a lot. So I have both cable and cellular wireless as backup because for me it’s a necessity.

If you’re running a business at home, you might get courted by cable companies. But if Internet access is critical to your business, I would recommend highspeed dialup, despite what I’ve said above. You will at least have consistent service – judging from my research, not experience. On the other hand, if there is some way to justify the cost and you have a choice of either highspeed or cable, I’d say get both. It doesn’t hurt having backup access. Although figuring out how to set up your network at home will be interesting.