Comcast internet woes.

[Lemur]

Replacing the modem is an obvious first step. Truth is that cable is faster (generally) than DSL dollar for dollar, so you wants to stick with cable if you can.

If Comcast is willing to replace the modem and re-run the cable, you should be sitting pretty. Just be advised that Comcast does some serious traffic shaping, so if your World of Warcraft client tries to update with the bittorrent protocol, expect problems.

[PanzerJaeger]

Stick with Comcast.

I'm in the South as well, and Bellsouth is terrible.

The problem is most likely on your end. If they put in a dedicated line you'll be good to go. I would push for that even if the problem can be solved in another way for ping purposes. My family bought a penthouse in a very old bank building that was redone into flats. We love the eclectic atmosphere, but unfortunately it was not designed in the internet world and things had to be sorted.

I fought with Bellsouth's DSL for 2 years and they were jerks the entire time. I now have a dedicated Comcast cable line and I get excellent pings. Im getting like 40-80 on american servers and low hundreds on Euro ones.

*Gets the heck out of Lemur's playground before he assembles his posse...

[Husar]

I'm already annoyed if they disconnect me for a second, if they'd disconnect me for several hours several times a month I'd complain and if they would not change it I'd drop them and get another ISP ASAP. I use DSL though and here we have plenty of ISPs(hard to say, 10? 20? I may not even know them all ) offering DSL at low prices. Heard that cable can be really slow here around the time everybody watches TV (prime time?) and in addition they wanted me to pay >300EUR to get the house(not mine, I have a flat) connected in the first place.
Hard to say about the USA but here DSL seems to be the better option and I wouldn't put up with long downtimes, unless of course there are no alternatives, which sadly seems to be the case in the US.

[TevashSzat]

In the US, cable is usually about 5 times faster or so than DSL, but about 2-3 times more expensive.

I had to stick to Comcast since Verizon, which is the only DSL provider where I live, does not service my community. Right after I got Comcast, Verizon started installing cables for FIOS