Don't Get Robbed on the Road to
Faster Access
Jon C.A. DeKeles, Technical Director
ZDNet AnchorDesk
Thursday, May 29, 1997
Six months ago I stood on my virtual
soap box and warned you to be wary
of con artists pitching high-speed
Net access-Trans Warp
connection rates, if you will. Said
you'd be better off humming along on
impulse power (33K) for a while
longer. Did you listen?
Months have passed now and you've
been barraged with ads about
super-fast 56K modems. Teased
with talk of 67.2K modems on the
way. Rumblings about ISDN and DSL. Cable modems. And here at
AnchorDesk we've been touting satellites as a hopeful solution to
bandwidth woes. You're wondering if it's finally time to chuck the 33K
modem and grab some of that Trans Warp speed dangling out there so
provocatively.
Listen up. I'm back on my virtual soap box to issue a short progress
report. Short because I honestly don't see a lot of progress. Nothing I'd
advise sinking money into, least yet. Here's why:
56K modems: No matter what it says on the box, you still aren't
going to get consistent 56K speed. As the PC Magazine review in
the sidebar indicates, FCC regs won't allow more than 53K
throughput at present, (and that's the best the U.S. Robotics
products tested could do anyway). If you're thinking 53K sounds
pretty good, do some checking before you plunk down a couple
hundred bucks: Your connection speed will be negatively
impacted by the level of noise on your telephone line. Also
standards confusion here, so what you buy now may not be
supported later.
ISDN: It's a good news/bad news story with ISDN (Integrated
Service Digital Network). Prices are stabilizing, regional telephone
companies are offering ISDN service now, and a dedicated
64Kbps ISDN connection may actually deliver better (i.e. faster)
performance than a congested T1 line. But high speed comes
with a high cost. Prices may be a bit better, but they're still
mighty steep.
Cable modems: May want to write the obit on this one. PC
Week reports vendors are backing away from cable, given
competition from digital subscriber line technology and cable's
massive implementation headaches. Hewlett-Packard, IBM and
Intel among those reportedly throwing in the towel.
DSL: Digital subscriber line technology comes in a couple of
flavors. Because asymmetrical (ADSL) runs on copper phone
lines already in place, they'll likely be first out of the chute. But
don't hold your breath. As PC Week suggests in its "Farfetched
Dream" article (linked in the sidebar), commitment from telcos
questionable. And there are no standards. ADSL modems will
initially push data at 1.5Mbps, but could eventually go as high as
51Mbps.
Satellites: The OuterNet-Jesse's name for high-speed Internet
access via satellite-is going to take a few years to be widely
accessible and affordable. There will be standards battles waged.
But it may well be outer space that saves cyberspace from
bandwidth peril. |
