Basically, cable is shared bandwidth (shared with other subscribers in your neighborhood) and the cable companies typically over sell it. So what can happen is in the evenings when everyone is surfing the web, it might not be as fast as dial up. But in the middle of the night when most folks are sleeping, you might be screaming along at 6 Mbps (VERY FAST!). Also, it's not as secure as DSL or other media since you are sharing but that is typically not a concern for the average Joe.

With DSL, you have a dedicated line running to the phone companies central office that you are not sharing with anyone so it's more secure. I've had DSL for 4 years now and have had very few problems (outages lasting a few minutes at most).

So in a nutshell; Cable is faster, until one of your neighbors sets up a FTP server and then you'll be wishing you still had dial up.

Cheers
Bill