Surewest Broadband

[OnParole]

I was just looking at Cnet's rating of broadband ISP's and Surewest (yes the crappy cell phone co.) Has the Second Highest DSL speed rating for the nation, I wish I could get surewest... instead I have to go with MCI, which might actually lower my pings and latency since they operate the biggest backbone network.

[DeadLamb]

I though DSL was sort of DSL being they all run of the same phone lines.. so on some level who faster (unless they just offer faster speed for the same $$$) is more about those homes being closer and newer phone lines and so on..

Right? Wrong? I don't really track DSL too much being I'm out of range for the option and just went with cable... Still, if say my phone lines are from 1950's etc, so not that great and all DSL runs off the same lines... errrrrrrrrrrrrrr so do the rating of a given company really mater? Just wondering..

[Poncho]

Actually I believe that Surewest is DSL through Fiber, which gives it the crazy fast speeds. I think that there are a couple on here who have Surewest, so maybe they can elaborate in greater detail.

[OnParole]

The speed also has to do with the hardware any the backbone connection that any particular ISP uses. Also lets say ISP A and ISP B both have the same hardware, same backbone provider, yet ISP A has 2x the users as ISP B guess which one is going to be faster... Thats right ISP B because there are less users "competing" for the ISP's server resources. IF you remember in the good old days when it was Dial up or ISDN for home connections The newest Local ISPs would always have better ping times because of the users issue.... just a clarification