The following articles describes the pluses and minuses of the three main
options for increasing one's connection speed to the Internet.
kelly
the New York Times
November 11, 1999
Picking the Right Data Superhighway
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High-Bandwidth Web Access Is a Surfer's Dream, but Each Route Has
Its Speed Bumps
By PETER H. LEWIS
AUSTIN, Tex. -- The key to happiness in the Internet age is
bandwidth. Bandwidth, bandwidth, bandwidth. Fat pipes, capable of
sucking down Web pages, music files, video clips, e-mail and other
forms of digital information and entertainment from the Internet in
the blink of an eye. A data spigot that is always open, without
busy signals and without the kinds of delays and service
interruptions that drive most computer users mad.
Bandwidth -- a measure of the flow of information, in bits, that
moves over a given distance in a period of time -- is the most
important factor in the development of new types of services on the
Internet, more so than increases in personal computer processing
power or new types of Internet communications devices.
Until recently, high-bandwidth connections to the Internet were
available mainly to businesses and certain lucky people willing and
able to pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars a month for
so-called broadband Internet access. But with the development of
cable modems, digital subscriber line (D.S.L.) modems and satellite
data services, several million Americans now have access to
high-speed, broadband data services.
You can tell who they are by the smug looks on their faces. I know,
because I see the face of a bandwidth glutton in the mirror each
morning. I am rich in bandwidth, wallowing in a broadband trough.
In recent months I have had the luxury of using not just one
broadband connection in my home office but three: a cable modem, a
D.S.L. modem and a satellite modem. I've been testing them to see
which one to keep, a decision that sooner or later a lot of Net
surfers are going to make.
Now, only a small percentage of Americans live in the right
geographic or service area to get any one of these services, and
even fewer -- perhaps 1 percent, according to market reseachers --
have a choice of two. But by the grace of whatever digital deities
watch over the Internet, my house in Austin is in a rare sweet
spot, where cable, D.S.L. and satellite coverage overlap. I also
had I.S.D.N. (integrated services digital network, which
essentially combines the capacity of two phone lines), but I had it
ripped from my house when its cost and complexity far outstripped
the modest speed improvements it offered over regular dial-up phone
service.
My files are downloaded in a snap. Web pages pop onto my screen. I
do not think twice about downloading video clips or MP3 music
files. Multiplayer network games and home videoconferences suddenly
become practical. But the thing that changes everything is the fact
that the Internet is always on, whenever I want it.
My biggest nightmare is that I will wake up someday and have to
connect to the Internet using -- the horror, the horror -- an
old-fashioned dial-up 56K modem on a dial-up telephone line.
Here is an example: Earlier this year, the movie trailer for "Star
Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace" was made available for
downloading from the Internet, but it was a 25-megabyte file. The
fastest conventional modems available today, at 56K, can download
nearly 56,000 bits per second. There are 8 bits in a byte, and,
because of way binary numbers are counted, 1,048,576 bytes, or
8,388,608 bits, in a megabyte and roughly 200 million bits in a
25-megabyte file. In the time it takes to do the calculation of how
long it would take a regular modem to download the file, it would
already be done via a cable or D.S.L. modem.
Alas, I cannot put all three broadband services on my expense
account indefinitely, so I have to choose. Following is a
discussion of the three broadband options, and what went into my
decision.
Cable
The black coaxial cable that carries cable television signals to
tens of millions of households can also handle high-bandwidth data
connections. Analysts expect cable to become the dominant method
for high-speed Internet connections at home, in part because cable
already passes by the majority of houses in the country. But older
cable systems were designed to be only one-way, sending video to
the home, so cable providers have to upgrade their systems to give
them the two-way capabilities needed for Internet access.
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A cable modem provides fast access to the Internet, until all the
neighbors hook up, too.
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The top speed of a cable modem, at least in theory, is about 30
million bits per second (30 mbps), but a more realistic expectation
is around 1 mbps. It can be a bit faster, but considering that most
of us connect a cable modem to a 10-mbps Ethernet card, 30 mbps is
a pipe dream. Uploading is somewhat slower, but that is usually not
a problem for most home users.
More important is that cable downloading can be even slower,
depending on how many of your neighbors are also using the
neighborhood cable pipe at the same time. It is a shared service.
If you have the local cable line all to yourself, you can easily
top 1 mbps. But if all of your neighbors have cable modems, things
can slow down so much that you might actually yearn to have your
dial-up modem back. If one of your cable-using neighbors starts
running a Web server out of the home, you can imagine neighbors
marching with torches and pitchforks. The two leading cable data
services, Time Warner's Roadrunner and AT&T Cable's @Home, forbid
residential customers to run Web server computers on the network.
Remember, however, that the practical speed of any broadband
network, no matter what its theoretical speed, is limited by the
slowest link on the network. If you link to a popular site that is
congested, or to an obscure site that may be attached to the
Internet through the equivalent of a hand-cranked computer, your
multimegabit broadband connection will slow down accordingly.
My monthly cable data fee is $44.95 because I also subscribe to the
cable company's standard (as opposed to basic) television services.
If I were not already a cable television customer, I would have to
become one to get the data services, taking my monthly cost to a
minimum of about $65 a month. With my extra television channels,
I'm now paying Time Warner $85 a month, which includes the rental
of the cable modem. Adding e-mail addresses for family members
costs $5 a month each. If I want to have a home page on the Web, it
is $5 extra per month.
There was a setup and installation charge of $130, but periodic
promotional deals cut that price in half. It took several
frustrating exchanges with the local company before technicians
finally came to my house. Over all, the installation process was
about what I had come to expect from my cable company: a logistical
nightmare.
Besides the Jekyll and Hyde speed issues that affect cable modems,
a big drawback is that cable customers have no choice of Internet
service providers. America Online and other popular I.S.P.'s are
challenging the cable companies in court to open cable services to
competition, but for now, it's either Roadrunner or @Home. Time
Warner is my local cable company, and Roadrunner is the only choice
I have for cable I.S.P. service.
Another concern is data security. Because it is a shared network,
any of your devious neighbors with the technical expertise to run a
network sniffer can intercept data packets from your computer. That
is highly unlikely, but it is a risk.
Try this: Lie to your neighbors, telling them that hackers came in
over your cable modem and wiped out your bank accounts. Mention
that you have heard that D.S.L. service is more secure. Then you
will have the cable network all to yourself.
D.S.L.
D.S.L., which stands for digital subscriber line, enables
high-speed Internet connections to houses and small businesses over
the same copper telephone lines that handle voice and fax calls. It
does not interfere with voice traffic on the line, however, so one
person can make or receive calls while another is using the same
line to connect to the Internet. A big advantage, therefore, is
that D.S.L. does not require the installation of a second phone
line or cable service.
_________________________________________________________________
D.S.L. does not require a second phone line or cable, but the service
degrades quickly with distance.
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Its big drawback is that the service degrades quickly as a function
of distance, so customers are limited to a geographic radius of
about 3 miles from a telephone company's central office
(technically, about 17,500 feet). The phone company first checks to
see if your nearest central office offers digital service, then
checks to see if you live close enough to it and finally checks the
actual line to see if it can handle D.S.L. bandwidth. If everything
checks out, the phone company will send out a crew to install a
splitter, which splits voice and data traffic on the line. A
splitterless form of the service is also in the works.
There are many kinds of D.S.L. The most common for residential
service is the asynchronous kind, A.D.S.L., or A.D.S.L Lite, which
offers slightly lower data speeds. On an A.D.S.L. line, information
is uploaded to the Internet at one speed, typically 128 kilobits
per second, but downloaded at much higher speeds, typically 384
kilobits per second (kbps) to 1.544 megabits per second (mbps).
The downloading speed is most important for most people, so it is
fair to say that downloading with D.S.L. is anywhere from 7 to 25
times as fast as with the fastest dial-up analog modems.
Unlike cable modem users, who share a line, each D.S.L. subscriber
has a dedicated line to the central office. Therefore, the speed is
more constant and predictable.
The top speed of a D.S.L. modem is basically determined by how much
money you are willing to spend and how close you live to the
central telephone office. I live 200 yards from a central office,
and my basic D.S.L. service regularly achieves more than the
minimum speed of 384 kbps downstream and often hovers near the 1.5
mbps maximum; it is 128 kbps upstream.
It costs about $70 a month, which includes the telephone company
line charge of $39 a month, the fee of the Internet service
provider, three e-mail addresses and other services for which the
cable company charges extra.
I also paid $212 for a cable modem and a network adapter card. I
leased the modem instead of buying one outright because I wanted to
make sure it worked with the D.S.L. equipment at the phone company.
My monthly fee is high compared with other D.S.L. offerings around
the country. In general, you can expect to pay $30 to $50 a month
for basic service.
While D.S.L. cannot compete with cable in terms of speed during the
day, when most of my neighbors are at their offices and I have the
cable line mostly to myself, it is routinely faster than cable in
the evenings, when my neighbors are sharing my cable pipe.
I can increase my guaranteed D.S.L. performance to a minimum of 384
kbps upstream and 1.544 mbps downstream by paying $170 or more a
month.
The performance at this level is almost comparable with the speeds
of T-1 lines, which many companies use to operate Web-based
businesses. T-1 service typically costs $1,000 a month or more.
Other forms of D.S.L. service can promise speeds up to 50 mbps, but
at monthly prices that would probably exceed your mortgage payment.
As with cable, my D.S.L. connection is always on.
Satellite
Satellite data service has so much promise, especially for people
in areas not served by D.S.L. or cable. But satellite also has many
challenges.
The Web is an interactive medium, while satellite is intrinsically
a one-way medium (most of us do not routinely communicate with
satellites). To send mouse clicks and typed commands to the
Internet, you have to have an open phone line in addition to the
satellite feed.
Satellite service requires the installation of a receiver dish
antenna, which is about the size of a garbage can lid and costs
$200 to $400. The dish has to have a clear line of sight to the
satellite, which in the New York City area is typically in the
southwestern sky.
The installation and alignment of the dish is not for technological
sissies, and I highly recommend paying the extra $200 to $300 for
professional installation. Once installed, moreover, the data
signal can be knocked out of whack by high winds or bad weather.
_________________________________________________________________
Satellite service has much promise for downloading data, but it also
presents many challenges.
_________________________________________________________________
I signed up for Hughes DirecPC satellite data services as part of a
package with Compaq Computer. Compaq, like many other PC makers, is
trying to make it as easy as possible for its customers to be ready
for broadband access. Besides the dish and installation cost,
monthly satellite data service costs $30 to $130 a month, depending
on how many hours you spend on line.
The $30 plan is good for a measly 25 hours a month. The $130 plan
allows up to 200 hours a month (versus unlimited time with cable or
D.S.L. service).
Satellite data services may someday be ubiquitous and reach speeds
of 45 mbps, but for now the maximum speed is a relatively pokey 400
kbps.
More users can mean slower speeds and, occasionally, busy signals
when you're trying to connect with the local satellite I.S.P.
So far, so bad. The guys who wired my satellite system were
apparently receiving their orders directly from deep space. Despite
my request that they mount the dish on the side of the house and
not drill holes in my roof, I now have a dish bolted through my
roof.
Satellite is a swell choice for people who cannot get cable or
D.S.L. service, especially people who live in remote areas. But a
satellite broadband connection requires a phone line, and that can
be a major problem if you live in Whitefish, Mont., and the nearest
satellite I.S.P. is a long-distance call away in Bozeman.
Decisions
If you spend only a few minutes on line every day, switching to a
broadband modem may not make much financial sense. But if you find
yourself spending more time connected to the Internet each day and
becoming more impatient with busy signals and the time spent
waiting for pages to load, a broadband connection may be the
solution.
Satellite was scratched off my list first. If I lived in an area
where satellite was my only choice, I could live with it. But since
I have a choice, satellite isn't it.
I'm still going to use an analog modem because it is impossible to
take my cable modem and D.S.L. modem with me on trips.
The choice, then, comes down to two contenders, cable and D.S.L.
Either is vastly more satisfactory than a regular modem, and if I
had no choice and had to take one or the other, I would still
consider myself very fortunate, no matter which one I had. The
speed is nice, but more than that, I have come to rely on the
always-on connection. There are no busy signals, no delays in
getting online, no screeching, beep-boop modem sounds and no
interruptions if I stay idle longer than the service provider
thinks is necessary.
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Bringing broadband exhilaration to the plodding masses.
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Despite cable's theoretical speed advantage, the actual
performances of cable and D.S.L. are comparable. Therefore, the
determinants come down to price and, to a lesser extent, to
security, the choice of I.S.P. and reliability.
If I had to choose -- and economics dictate that I must -- I would
keep D.S.L. Performance is steady and reliable. From the start, the
phone company has been easier to deal with than my cable company,
although both could improve their customer service skills.
Naturally, many people have drawn exactly the opposite conclusion.
They found their local phone company impossible to deal with and
had no trouble with cable. It all depends on the skills and
temperament of the local service providers. The best tactic, as
always, is to ask neighbors and friends who have local broadband
access about their experiences.
______________________________________________________________
Peter H. Lewis at [log in to unmask] welcomes your comments and
suggestions.
______________________________________________________________
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