The Communications
Consumer Review

How To Choose A Broadband Internet Service Provider

It's no wonder that so many consumers are turning to broadband for their internet connection as it is up to a 150 times faster than a regular dial-up connection, it doesn't tie up any telephone lines, and it is always on. Those are all great reasons for switching to a broadband internet service provider.

There are three different kinds of broadband internet services in general use today and that is cable, DSL, and satellite internet. We will cover satellite internet in a different section of this web site, so on this page let's focus on cable and DSL service.

Cable broadband Internet service is provided through your local cable TV company and as mentioned before, can be up to 150 times faster than dial-up service. It can also be up to three times faster than DSL service too. The speed of a cable Internet connection changes due to the number of users that are online at any one time, meaning that your connection speed may decrease during peak usage periods of the day.

DSL service is provided by your local telephone company instead and uses existing telephone lines without interfering with your telephone service. The speed of a DSL connection depends entirely on the distance from a local telephone company switching station, so before you choose DSL as your broadband internet service, be sure to find out how far away your house is from the closest switching station.

As far as which broadband service is best, perhaps a slight edge can be given to cable internet service over DSL, simply because of the higher speed of the internet connection in most cases. However, either service would actually make a fine choice for upgrading from dial up internet.

It's very difficult to make an honest comparison of cable and DSL service providers as so much depends on your location, but massive consumer surveys conducted by J.D. Power and Associates as well as others, have identified some of the best broadband internet service providers overall.

As far as cable internet service providers are concerned, the highest ratings generally go to Cox Cable for performance and customer satisfaction. Other highly rated companies include EarthLink,, Roadrunner, and Cablevision's Optimum Online service.

On the DSL side, Verizon receives high marks for their standard service, and not so high marks for their less expensive economy service. SBC Yahoo DSL is also a very highly rated company in both performance and customer satisfaction as well.

So if you haven't upgraded to broadband Internet service yet, why not give it a try soon? The cost for broadband Internet is more than dial-up service, but the advantages are very apparent as soon as you use it.