heya, I just got dsl service in my apartmen so I could upgrade from fedora core 3 to 4. I was going to go out and buy a dsl modem instead of rent one from quest. I called up a couple of computer stores to run price matches and came across and interesting phenomenon. a couple of the techs there said that a dsl modem and a cable modem are the exact same thing. aka interchangeable. I was under the impression that each service had their own type of modem. Cable had one that used a Cat5 uplink and dls used the basic phone cord uplink. are they correct. can I buy a modem that says cable modem on it and be able to use it for my dsl ??????

AFAIK Cable modems and DSL modems are not interchangeable. They work on competely different principles.

The input to a DSL modem is a phone line jack and the input to a cable modem is the standard TV coax F connector.

I was pretty dang sure that they were different products. It makes no sense technically speaking. I was just asking around cuz I didn't want to go out and drive for 45 minutes just to find out they didn't have what I needed. thanks guys