Until now internet the public had to access the WWW through slow phone lines, connecting anywhere from 300 bps in the infancy of public access to 56k. But now there are several high-speed alternatives to the old phone line, one being the cable modem. Using your cable TV provider as your ISP, people can access the Internet at speeds up to 27 Mbps, but limitations with hardware limit this to about 2Mbps (www.TechTarget.com). This speed is fine for most users. It is also "always on". Meaning you do not have to dial-up to your ISP. It is similar to a LAN connection. This hasn't been done before mainly because when cable TV companies were being formed, the networks were only being set up to send data and not to receive it. The remedy for this was to upgrade the networks not only to be able to receive information, but to handle the larger amount of bandwidth (www.Vicomsoft.com).

The way cable internet access is possible is my using a

Cable Internet access is a great way for people to access the WWW quickly if available to them and they can afford to pay for it. It offers speeds up to 50x that of a 56k dial-up connection and allows multiple computers to share the same connection. If providers can keep up with demand, it will easily be the choice of many users nationwide for years.

The type of modem a person needs depends on the standard the provider is using. One may be using the Multimedia Cable Network Systems (MCNS)/ Data over Cable Systems Interface Specification (DOCSIS) standard, and the IEEE 802.14 standard. The faster, bandwidth efficient, better performing, and more robust choice is the MCNS DOCSIS standard (www.Vicomsoft.com). Because this is the standard, most manufacturers have developed their modems to work with it, though some manufacturers have based theirs off of the IEEE 802.14 standard.

If a user does decide to go with cable Internet access, they have a choice between 2 major providers: AOL Time Warner (RoadRunner) and @HOME, though others are slowly appearing (www.catv.org). The one they use all depends on their cable provider's affiliation. For example, Comcast Television uses the @Home service whereas MediaOne uses RoadRunner. These cable provid

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Approximate Word count = 841
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)