Rev it up: longing for faster Internet access? Check out these new and upcoming options

Entrepreneur, March, 1997 by Cheryl J. Goldberg

* Obtain an ISDN connection. Make sure your ISP or online service supports ISDN. Internet ISDN service is widely available from national and regional ISPs. Among the major online services, The Microsoft Network and CompuServe are the leading supporters of ISDN.

* WIRED FOR SPEED

In the long term, cable modems connected to cable TV lines promise to provide far faster access speeds at a better price than ISDN. Cable technology should allow you to receive data at speeds ranging from 500 Kbps to 30 Mbps, and send data from your PC at speeds ranging from 96 Kbps to 10 Mbps - all for less than $50 per month. For example, a cable modem will allow users to download a 72 Mbit short animation clip or video in 18 seconds, compared with the 21-plus minutes needed when using ISDN.

This technology is not available commercially and probably won't be for another year or two, but there are a number of pilot projects underway. Communities where cable modems are being tested include Sunnyvale, California, where Tele-Communications is testing @Home Network; Greater Akron and Canton, Ohio, where Time Warner's Road Runner trial is in progress; and Elmira, New York, where Time Warner is testing LineRunner. Both of Time Warner's products offer original content as well as access to the Internet and e-mail.

Although the vast majority of U.S. homes are already wired for cable, there are a number of technological hurdles cable companies will have to overcome before cable modem technology can become widely available. One major problem is that today's cable connections are only one-way and people using cable modems require two-way interactivity. Cable operators will need to allocate spectrum on the cable for "upstream" signals so you can send data from your PC back to the Internet. Because all homes or offices in a neighborhood share one transmission channel, if your neighbors do lots of downloads, your performance will suffer unless the cable operator provides additional capacity or channels.

Because cable modems are a new technology, they are relatively expensive and there is little standardization, meaning cable modems from different vendors are incompatible. If you move to another city, you'll need to get a new cable modem from the local cable operator. Efforts to standardize cable modems are underway, however, with the several industry consortia already working on the issue and some individual vendors starting to work together to ensure their products will be compatible.

Still, with the cable industry in need of a major overhaul before its technology can successfully deliver Internet services, cable modems are not yet ready for prime time.

* IN THE FUTURE

Another new technology on the horizon is ADSL. Originally, AT&T developed ADSL to transmit movies over the Internet, but the technology was ignored until the Telecommunications Act of 1996 freed local phone companies to provide cable TV and other nontraditional services.

Offering speeds of between 1.6 Mbps and 8 Mbps per second downstream and 640 Kbps upstream, ADSL's big advantage is that it can be used over the same copper wire you use for your phone.