phone signal and a higher frequency band is used for upstream data transfers at rates up to 640 Kbps. The rest of the band is used to transmit data downstream, either from the Internet or as video-on-demand, at speeds of up to 8 Mbps. ADSL is likely to be more expensive than cable data access and it is too early to determine how fast ADSL will be in the real world (Clark, 1999)Another source of competition for the MSOs is a satellite-based, high-speed Internet service called DirecPC, which is available through Hughes Network Systems (Clark, 1999). For $499, U.S. customers can purchase a kit that includes a satellite receiving dish, a PC interface card, and software. This price does not installation. With this service, upstream transmissions are sent via dial-up connections to the ISP. The upstream information requests go to the DirecPC satellite network operations center, which broadcasts the requested data down to the users from a Galaxy IV Satellite at rates up to 400 Kbps. This service starts at $9.95 per month, but goes up to $129.95 per month for the premium package. With the basic $9.95 rate, the user will also be charged 60 cents for each megabyte of information downloaded from the satellite (Clark, 1999). Another future source of competition for cable modems is wireless cable. Wireless cable sounds like an oxymoron, but wireless cable TV is already an established business. Wireless cable works by using a satellite system to broadcast multichannel TV programming to homes equipped with dish antennas that operate in the 2- to 2.6-GHz range (Clark, 1999). The system can also be used to transmit data as well. The downstream data from the satellite is received by the dish, which passes the information through coaxial cable to a special modem that converts the signal into IP data the computer can computer understand. This process works for downstream data, but upstream data transmission involves using a standard analog telep...
