What is faster?

DSL, high speed internet, wireless internet, or something else?

ScottGem

Cable

Generally cable is the fastest connection. However there are many factors involved now.

Originally cable was a single tier product. Meaning that all subscribers got the same service. However, cable companies have recently introduced different tiers. For a varying fee, you can get a basic service, faster service or more enhanced service. DSL has always been a tiered offering. To get speeds close to cable, you usually had to pay for near top of the line service.

Since both now have tiered offerings, you need to compare the speed of the offering. You might be able to get an enhanced DSL service that is faster than a basic Cable service.

High Speed Internet usually refers to dialup services that use caching techniques to speed up the service. But they will never be faster than broadband.

Wireless Internet depends on your definition. I assume you are referring to wirless broadband. This is a service that uses cellular networks to transmit data. These are faster than High Speed Internet but usually around low tier DSL in speed.

NeedKarma

Maybe it's different in the States (I'm in Canada) but the generic term 'high speed internet' refers to either cable or ADSL internet service to your house.

Cable internet may suffer from peak period slowdown due to the fact that everyone on your street who is using cable is using the same 'pipe'. The telco ADSL has the wires run from your house directly to the access point so it's not shared early on like cable.

Wireless internet can mean different things: it can mean the free service offered in your municipal network (slow as molasses) or a wireless network that you set up at home. If it's a home network then you'll still need cable or ADSL coming into to your house before your network shares that with other coputers in your home.

ScottGem

Hi Need. Companies like AOL, Juno, NetZero and Earthlink offer Dial up services they call High Speed Internet. For example, this is from NetZero's home page:

NetZero HiSpeed Internet offers accelerated dial up Internet access, with Web surfing up to five times faster than conventional dial up and includes Pop-up Blocker. The NetZero High Speed Internet service works from any phone jack using a standard dial up connection does not require any new hardware.

In the states, Cable and DSL access (along with T-1 lines) are referred to as broadband.

The term wireless internet is ambiguous. It could refer to 802.11 communications, but these are generally referred to as Wireless networking or WiFi.

Curlyben

In the UK the fastest connection, that I'm on, is ADSL2+ running at 24mbps.

Cable comes a very close second at 10mbps, but there are ongoing trials of a 50 mbps connection over cable.