Cable Modem Service Q & A

for the pending implementation by Cox Communications

This information is from a newspaper article published in the Saddleback Valley Voice on February 8th, 1997 and a presentation by Rick Guerrero of Cox Communications to the Unix Users Association of Southern California on February 10, 1997.

What is "Cable Modem"?

Briefly, a cable modem is a device which converts between a computer's digital signal, and the analog signal currently used for cable TV. Cox plans to rent Motorola cable modems to customers. The rental is included in the monthly service fee.

How fast is it?

Users can expect throughput in the range of 1.5 - 3 megabits/sec in the downstream direction (from the network to home), and 0.7 megabits/sec in the upstream direction (from home to the network)

Infrastructure details

What Cox is doing in preparation

Cox has/is

• Had to find a way filter out upstream noise - this could be generated by microwave ovens and other appliances.
• Install fiber optic cabling to upgrade bandwidth from 500MHz to 750 MHz.
• Reconstruct many facilities, including "head-in" facilities.

Cox and several other cable companies have banded together to purchase an ISP called @HOME. Cox has a 15% share. Rather than just provide content, @HOME wants to provide content too, just like AOL and others.

Because of all the upgrades necessary, Cox will be introducing cable modem access to communities in the following order:

1. Mission Viejo - 12/17/06
2. Lake Forest
3. Rancho Santa Margarita & Coto de Caza
4. Laguna Niguel
5. Aliso Viejo
6. then the rest of their service area, including Irvine, in a checkerboard pattern as cable upgrades are completed.

By the end of the third quarter of this year, they expect a full roll-out.

Costs

Supported operating systems

Windows for Workgroups 3.11
Windows 95
Mac OS 7.5.3 (and above?)

Windows NT and Linux are not supported, although comments made lead me to believe that they'll work if you can provide your own support.

Hardware requirements

16Mb RAM
50-100 Mb free disk space
486/66 Intel system
Rick did not mention why the hardware requirements were so high.

Installation procedure

A residential installation will be performed by a team of two technicians:

1. The first will check the cable line and perform an upgrade if necessary.
2. The second will perform a systems check of the PC, scan for viruses, install the network card, and add software. Cox is considering the pros and cons of also offering memory upgrades.

An average installation takes two hours.

Miscellaneous

• Cox will have a huge amount of hard disk space at its station in Mission Viejo to cache requests. They plan for relatively few requests to go out onto the Internet backbone.
• Encryption is not supportted at present.
• Only one e-mail address (on an @HOME Server) is permitted per household.
• 5Mb disk storage on server per account
• No support for networked computers or servers in a household
• The plan is to segment the service so that no more than 2000 homes have to share bandwidth

Potential problems

• How will Cox plan for downtimes?
• Selling a new commodity is the biggest challenge - Internet service is fundamentally different than cable TV.