Here's the skinny:
DSL speed is based on the amount of loop length you're at from the closest DSLAM ( Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexor ). Ma Bell will tell you that DSL is dedicated (you get the same amount of speed no matter what time of the day). This is a lie. If you're put on a remote DSLAM you're fvcked no matter what because the max dl you'll get is 249K! This means you're too far to be wired in so they hook up a split to your nid with your neighbors and you all share the line. It's vastly cheaper than the phone companies laying down miles of fibreline. The best thing to do if you have DSL is to call your phone company and tell them you have an alarm system hard wired into your line and you already have it filtered but you'd like it if they could send a tech out and do a NID split. A NID split is when you run a direct line from the phone box on the outside of your house (NID) straight to the phone jack where the modem is bypassing all of the internal wiring.
Cable, if speed is what you're after, is the way to go. Although the drawback is everyone in the neighborhood shres the same tap. It's like this: Say at 0300 when the rest of the normal fvcks are dreaming you're up playing WoW and dl the latest Jenna Haze flick, your speeds will be through the roof because hardly anyone else is using bandwidth from the tap. However, at 0800 when everyone else is up and showered,shampooed and ready to battle thier workday they're up checking email before they head out, EVERYONE, is sucking bandwidth so you each have to divvy it up making everyone crawl online.
I know all of this because I was a project Manager for AOL Broadband for 3
years.
To answer your question youngblood, if the tech did a disk cleanup on your machine and you're speed went higher it's bullsh!t. Your pc was faster but it did nothing for your speed. You should get a maintenance program for your pc and schedule regular cleanings. I suggest System Mechanic 6 Professional. I can guarantee the MTU and Time to live windows on your machine are not adjusted and windows may very well be bottlenecking bandwidth. You can search various forums for XP hacks to change both. Another problem is firewall and some spyware killers also hinder bandwidth because they're constantly running in your system. Call ComCast and have them run a speedtest with you online simultaneously with you on the phone. You can ping it through the network routers and see how many hops you've missed and also how many packets failed along the route.
Hope this helps buddy.
