Modems getting ready for Zulu technology:
Are Cable Modems a plausible solution?
Douglas Smith
I am sure that a lot of you, along with myself, are waiting for those super fast cable
modems to arrive. I have found myself calling the cable companies, trying to find out
when I can put my hands on one and start surfing at speeds in excess of 25Mbps,
unable to get any answers.
Traditional communication devices could only send and receive data at the same
speed (modems and LAN systems), while newer devices today can receive data
much faster than they can send (Satellite, wireless cable). Let's keep it simple: even
though most cable companies are advertising these blinding speeds over 25Mbps,
our PCs are really limited to the speed of the instaleed Ethernet interface. Also, if as
many people get cable technology as I expect, cable networks will slow down
considerably and resources will dwindle even more.
Let's look at a comparison of speeds. A 28.8-kbps modem using analog lines will
download a 3.5MB file in about 16 minutes. This is based on a good connection,
which is not always the case. A cable modem will download the same file in about 1
second, assuming again that you have a good connection.
How does all of this stuff work? Well, most cable systems are similar in nature, even
though they don't all work the same. Your cable company accesses the Internet and
sends the signal via hybrid fiber-coax network through a laser transmitter to a laser
receiver, somewhere between your cable company and your home. The signal is
then split through a cable splitter and then into your cable modem. From the cable
modem the cable is connected to an Ethernet card that is installed in your computer,
and at this point you are part of one big network with the cable company.
The cable companies are planning to have over 4.5 million homes in Canada and the
United States installed by the end of 1997. In comparison to the 23.1 million Internet
users in the United States, this number is a small part of a big industry. For starters,
your cable company first needs to upgrade its hardware and cables to the newer
fiber-optic and also train personnel for installation and technical support. This could
take years before most areas are fully capable of supplying this service, but as
supply and demand and the competition increases, things may happen faster than
we think.
Cable modems are really going to be hard to beat when you consider the speed,
along with not having to have multiple phone lines to access the Internet. All I can
say is, "When will I get mine?"
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