Ok, yea i searched in some of the threads about this and there were too many so I just decided to start a new one.

my issue is that i just got to pensacola, i am living alone and need to get cable/internet hooked up. right now i could get cox, directtv, and i think i can get dish network.

the problems:
cox costs way too much for what they provide.
with direct tv and dish network, i would have to get DSL or cable internet from someone else.
pensacola does have beautiful weather but can frequently have small rain showers during spring/summer, not sure how much that will effect dish reception.
Lastly, how much different or better is DSL and Cable internet. If I do a lot of advanced gaming online, how much bandwith do i need?

12/1/2009 2:22:43 PM

cox for internet and directv for TV? One of my transponders on directv is in the 20s right now (normal is 75-90) and it can rain pretty hard with only minor pixelation.

You mainly are concerned with latency WRT: 'advanced gaming' not bandwidth. If you go with DSL -- chances are you'll have to sweet talk someone in tech support to 'enable fastpath' or 'disable interleaving/error correction' to improve your latency. Generally with cable you're already in the 20ms range on something that would typically be in the 60s on a DSL line. With fastpath I've seen instant drops from 60ms to 15ms. My cable at home is 18-20ms consistently though.

If you go with directv and want the $100 @ 10/mo for each of us referral bonus let me know.

[Edited on December 1, 2009 at 2:41 PM. Reason : .]

12/1/2009 2:41:15 PM

yea, i think i am going to do cox preferred package which has 10 Mbps and 13 with the boost thing. which i dont understand what that is and if i get charged more. also, directtv has a good deal for tv stuff so im gonna match the two up. installing your own internet with cox doesnt sound hard. anything i should be aware of?

i will be the only one using this stuff, so im guessing that 10 Mbps is still good for gaming

[Edited on December 1, 2009 at 3:12 PM. Reason : .]

12/1/2009 3:11:50 PM

Like I said -- 10Mbps is irrelevant for gaming. You're more concerned with how long it takes the packets to get around the world. That's why gamers, podcasters, VoIP users would never use satellite internet no matter how 'comparable' the bandwidth was.

I pay 54.95 from Suddenlink (bought out the market left by Cox here) for 12Mb/768k. My latency is pretty acceptable and you'll probably see decent results. I would look up your area on http://www.dslreports.com and see if anyone has commented -- because without testing both -- that's the only way you're going to know.

Their 10Mbps is only going to help you if you have some source (or multiple sources) that's faster than 10Mbps to download from. (1200KB/s) It sounds like you would be fine with their base package if it's like 4Mb or something.

12/1/2009 3:27:58 PM

sounds good. but id think 3 Mbps still has an effect on my speed and downloading and brings the performance down. Playing MW2 on a 3 Mbps would hardly play will as opposed to 10

12/1/2009 5:51:49 PM

i'd be amazed if a game was sending 3mbps worth of traffic.

12/1/2009 6:00:53 PM

I don't even know that it would send more than 512k outbound which would justify the package increase based on upload speed. I haven't ever actually looked into it though. As long as wow was 250ms or less I didn't care.

12/1/2009 6:13:32 PM