ced. WHAT IS A CABLE MODEM? A cable modem is "a device that allows high speed data access (such as to the Internet_ via a cable TV network." In other words rather than running the Internet through the telephone, it will be run through cable TV. HOW DO CABLE MODEMS WORK? There are five main components to the operation of cable modems: 1. the headend 2. the trunk cable 3. the distribution cable in the neighborhood 4. the drop cable to the home and in house wiring 5. the terminal equipment. It's really a fairly simple process. A cable modem network is described as a "tree and branch" network. This means there is a main station (headend_ that has a trunk cable that distributes feeder cables to all of the neighborhoods. These feeder cables branch off into drop cables that go into the homes of the individuals, where it is then wired to the terminal equipment. WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES? There are many advantages to using the modem over a phone modem or an ISDN connection. Ther first advantage and probably the most popular and important to the average consumer is the speed of the modem. How many times have you found yourself staring at you monitor, waiting for your computer to download a file. Those days are over. A good modem in today's computer is 56Kbps. The cable modems that are being manufactured now range from, at the low end, 500Kbps to, at the high end, 36Mbps. Most of the cable modems being produced right now operate at 1.54Mbps upstream to 10Mbps downstream. Transfer Rate for a 10Mb File: MODEM SPEED/TYPE TRANSFER TIME 9.6Kbps telephone modem 2.3 hours 14.4Kbps telephone modem 1.5 hours 28.8Kbps telephone modem 46 minutes 56Kbps telephone modem 24 minutes 128Kbps ISDN connection 10 minutes 1.54Mbps T-1 connection 52 seconds 4Mbps cable modem 20 seconds 10Mbps cable modem 8 seconds This is a brief example of how fast a cable modem is in comparison to the connections we use today. This doesn't even include the 36Mbps cable modem that has ...
