It's a broadband world and both DSL and cable providers are competing in the market for supremacy. Speed is the only competition common in both of them and customers are the beneficiaries. With high speed and good quality service, both DSL and cable are compelled to stay in the same niche and working hard in sneaking each others clients. So the question remains 'Are DSL or cable any faster than each other?' The point you should be looking at before answering this question should be the kind of performance you are getting from your internet connection, only then you shall be able to provide a generic feedback. Let's see the difference in speed between DSL and cable along with some guidelines for maximizing your internet performance and experience. DSL and Cable Speed: Introduction Cable modem as an Internet service provider (ISP) gives higher levels of bandwidth than the DSL services. This is a very good advantage over your competitor but may not work for everyone as there can be different technical or financial reasons not going for cables modems. DSL vs. Cable: Raw Speed We all know cable modems runs faster than DSL. In terms of theoretical peak performance, cable modem runs faster than DSL. A cable provides very good bandwidth of approximately 30 Mbps, whereas, many DLS can't reach upto 10 Mbps. Looking at the other side of the coin, VDSL, another form of DSL technology can provide upto 30 Mbps matching closely on cables. However, not many Internet service providers (ISP) uses the VDSL technology especially in areas where an average customers internet connection speed requirement matches there DSL's offering at cheaper price. DSL vs. Cable: Real-World Speed Practically speaking, there isn't much advantage that a cable carries over DSL apart from the speed which is not a concern today. The major reason is Cable ISP's connect many houses in a row over same cable wire and if there is any congestion noticed, it will effect them all in terms of there internet connection speed. But there are ways in which a connection can be limited to 128 kbps or 256 kbps or 512 kbps depending on customer's subscription level by implementing speed caps. DSL and Cable: Speed Caps Speed caps are being used by many cables and DSL's provider for there residential customers which restricts the connection bandwidth in a proportion that a 30 Mbps connection can be cut down to only 3 Mbps by monitoring there daily usage. This practice is only followed when:

1. Capacity planning gets effected if only one customer connection eats all the bandwidth. In order to accommodate more users these speed caps are used
2. Keeping in mind that the daily bandwidth requirement in certain areas is not much thereby implementing speed caps.
3. A Service provider wants to maintain seamless specific connection to every subscriber by giving same amount of bandwidth to everyone. Without a cap, for example, some subscribers might take the liberty to experience an online video streaming while others struggle to even get it started.