New modem will speed up
Internet access
October 4, 1996
Web posted at: 6:20 p.m. EDT
ATLANTA (CNN) -- Home
Internet users frustrated with
the slow speed on the
information superhighway
may be in luck. A new type
of modem technology is
turbocharging access to the
Internet and World Wide
Web by using an ordinary phone line.
The modem created by Alcatel Telecom, a French-owned
company, can download information at 4 million bits per
second, more than 100 times faster than the current
28,000 bits-per-second standard for home computer
modems. The company says its equipment is also
significantly faster than other new types of lines like ISDN
and much-hyped cable TV modems.
The cost of the modem service to
users could be as low as $50 per
month, including a regular phone
line, Alcatel says.
Alcatel's modem is the size of a
CD player and uses two types of
technology: Asymmetrical Digital
Subscriber Line, ADSL, and
Asychronous Transfer Mode,
ATM, which together divide copper phone lines in two,
providing a path for on-line connections while retaining
room for simple phone calls.
The split also ends one of the top
complaints of on-line users -- slow
access to the Web and Internet --
by opening lanes and tremendously
increasing surfing speed.
Downloading pictures can be done
in seconds, and video and film
clips, which are notoriously
time-consuming to download, can
be accessed in minutes, Alcatel
officials say.
Alcatel says regional phone companies are jumping at the
opportunity. It requires a file cabinet-sized box of switching
equipment and servers installed at each phone company.
Commercial trials of the super-modems are expected to
begin by the middle of next year, with full-scale consumer
testing by the end of 1997.
CNN'S Brian Nelson contributed to this report. |
