Titans, Part III
As computer users have become more sophisticated and as the Internet has
become loaded with data-heavy graphics, traditional modems, the devices that
enable computers to communicate over telephone lines, have not kept pace.
The result: long delays while users wait for information to be received from the
network. The cable television industry is pinning some of its hopes for growth on
cable modems, which allow users to access the Internet using the cable network.
But only about 100,000 people have signed up for cable modems so far, according to
analysts, and the service is available to only about 10 percent of the nation's
homes.
People with a need for speed online today can often order high-speed data lines
from their local telephone company. But many of those options, such as the lines
known as ISDN connections, can be cumbersome and expensive and require
installation by a telephone company technician.
Microsoft has been particularly expert at playing on both sides of the
cable-telephone fence. Last year Microsoft invested $1 billion in Comcast Corp.,
the No. 4 cable company and a part owner of @Home Corp., a Redwood City
company that provides Internet access over cable lines. It also has teamed with
Ameritech, the Chicago-based Bell, to offer a DSL service in Ann Arbor at prices
far below the industry average.
For many years, engineers and programmers believed that the copper wires that
carry voice conversations could not compete with dedicated data networks in their
ability to carry large amounts of digital information.
Goal: 1.5 million bps
But recent advances in electrical engineering have challenged that assumption.
Some engineers today think that standard copper telephone wires can carry as
many as 8 million bits of information a second, though the consortium is initially
developing standards for modems that can carry only 1.5 million bits a second. A bit
is the smallest amount of information a computer can process, either a zero or a one.
Today's fastest standard modems are rated at 56,000 bits a second but are actually
imited to receiving 52,000 bits a second -- and in practice almost never reach that
speed.
There are dozens of companies, large and small, developing DSL products, though |
