[Aubrey]

I have charter cable but they cut the speed to 384k for more money, but I get digital cable and internet for about 100 bucks a month.

I looked into 1 meg DSL for 46 a month, then I could bundle my phone and DSL together for about 75 a month. If I went to Dish network I could get all the bells and whistles of Phone DSL and sattelite for about the same price as I am paying now.

The thing holding me back is I do not know a lot about DSL.

AS, griz can tell you my computer expertise ends at the on button. can anyone explain the advatges and disatvantages in english?

[Jump]

I have DSL and love it. Unlike cable, your not on a shared network. So when all my neigbhors are online, I don't know it. You will find people to spout pro's and cons for both. So your best just to look at the speeds and cost and make your determination. You can find all sorts of user supplied info at DSL Reports. Good site, with a ton of stuff.

[fluid]

The one nice thing about living rurally is that the only DSL available around here is provided by a semi-local company, the president of which I've met on several occasions, and I've come to love their service (especially near the beginning of the summer when my DSL inexplicably reset a few times one night and then a few days later I realized my up/down was doubled to about 1.2mbit/256kbit). I've heard horror stories about big-name DSL providers like Verizon, as well as the cable companies, and getting a lot of crap from them in the process of signing up and getting everything installed. My ex-girlfriend spent about 3 hours on the phone with Verizon trying to get her DSL working when she first got it ("Did you make sure it's plugged in?"), only to find out that they never bothered to actually enable the account after they received a payment.