The new fast modems and the new services that will be engendered by them
might be great ideas on which to connect blind computer users in your
community. One could organize folks for support, demonstrations, mutual
aid, group learning, and advocacy around this new technology. the
article below describes this coming trend that will likely come to your
block in a few years.
kelly
Newsweek, November 23, 1998
Fast Lane on the Infobahn
Two routes: the phone companies or the cable guy.
By Peter McGrath
When the poet Longfellow said that all things come to those who wait,
he was doubtless thinking of the World Wide Web. Waiting is a central
feature of the Web experience. The colorful moving graphics, the sound
bites and video clips--all the multimedia elements that make the Web a
unique publishing environment--also make it frustrating for most home
users. This is particularly true for people accustomed to the high
speeds of office networks. Retrieving the USA Today home page, for
example, can take more than a minute via dial-up modem, compared with
about five seconds with a T-1 connection at work. "There used to be
sites we'd never visit because it took so long to access them," says
Richard Stickel of Norcross, Ga. "And downloading files was not
something we'd do unless we wanted a headache."
But Stickel is now a happy man. A year ago he agreed to take part in a
test of Express, a cable-modem service run by MediaOne. Two cable
technicians came to his house, drilled a hole in the outer wall and
ran a length of coaxial cable from under the street to a special modem
attached to his personal computer. Within two hours, he was connected
to the Internet at about 50 times the speed of his old 33.6
kilobit-per-second (Kbps) conventional modem. Now, even video-game
downloads take only a few seconds. "It's like racing a Ferrari while
everyone else is driving a Volkswagen," Stickel says. "Being a test
dummy was a smart move."
High-speed Internet access for the home has arrived. The numbers are
still small. So far, about 135,000 households have signed up for the
cable- modem service now offered jointly by MediaOne and Time Warner
Cable under the name of Roadrunner. The @Home Network, which markets
cable-modem technology through affiliated cable carriers like Tele-
Communications Inc. (TCI) and Cox, had 210,000 customers as of Sept.
30. All together, cable-modem providers are expected to have perhaps
600,000 subscribers by the year-end, according to Thomas A. Jermoluk,
the CEO of @Home.
At the same time, telephone companies are finally beginning to get
serious about so-called broadband services. After a prolonged and
unsatisfying flirtation with a system called ISDN (Integrated Services
Digital Network), the regional Bells and their smaller local
competitors are turning to Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) technologies,
which can deliver Internet access to the home at T-1 speeds or better.
The telcos do so without enthusiasm: selling T-1 lines to companies at
$1,000 per month is a better business than selling DSL to residential
customers for a tenth of that price. But they figure they'd rather
pre-empt themselves than let cable companies pre-empt them.
Currently, few people have the luxury of choosing between cable modems
and DSL. The two compete directly in only a few markets, such as parts
of the San Francisco Bay Area. But that will change over the next few
years, especially once a new and less cumbersome DSL technology called
G.lite becomes an industry standard next June. G.lite won't offer as
much speed as other versions of DSL technology; but at the same time,
it won't be as hard to install, and won't cost as much.
As the competition heats up, which will you want?
In the short term, most people will find cable modems the technology
of choice, if only because of their greater availability. With its
proposed $32 billion acquisition of TCI, the long-distance giant ATT
is making a big bet that cable modems are the future of high-speed
Internet access. Already, nearly 20 million households are in
cable-served neighborhoods upgraded with the optical fiber required
for cable modems. The system has other advantages, too, mainly the
ability to deliver higher speeds for less money. There is a downside:
cable-modem customers share connections with every other cable-modem
customer in their neighborhood. When everyone wants access, download
speeds go down. For information about service where you live, call
your local cable company. Note: you don't have to subscribe to cable
TV to get a cable modem.
DSL holds attractions, too. By piggybacking on existing telephone
wires, it will in the end be nearly ubiquitous. Even more important,
DSL connections are reliable; the Bells may lack daring, but they
engineer their networks for stability, something cable companies can't
always say for themselves. There is also a security issue: since cable
technology treats neighborhoods like local-area networks, the people
next door have potential access to your computer. DSL connections are
what the telecoms world calls "dedicated"--once you've made the
connection, nobody else can share it. To learn more about the
timetable for DSL service in your area, call the phone company. Don't
forget to look into service from competitive local carriers, too. The
price you pay will probably vary according to the speed of the
connection you specify, typically about $120 a month for a T-1 speed
of 1.5 mega-bits per second.
Finally, ask yourself whether you really want high-speed access.
There's room for skepticism. People who think that the Web should
simulate television will certainly want all the bandwidth they can
afford. And they'll be urged on by companies like Intel and Microsoft,
whose ability to market new products will depend in large part on
bandwidth hunger. Web publishers will be on the bandwagon, too, if
only because high-speed connections will allow them to give
advertisers a media-rich environment.
But if your main use of the Web is for e-mail and to consult
text-driven services like stock-market information, you may find
old-fashioned dial-up (preferably on a second phone line dedicated to
computer use) all the speed you need, at least until prices come down.
And remember this: there's an iron law of highway planning that says
traffic increases to fill the amount of road available. The same is
true of the Internet. The more bandwidth there is, the more it will be
gobbled up by flashier Web sites and bulkier downloads. And the
waiting game will begin again.
With Arlyn Tobias Gajilan in Atlanta
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