Hearthlist Digest #349 - Monday, September 27, 1999 Cable Modem! by "Craig Issod" <[email protected]>
(back) Subject: Cable Modem! From: "Craig Issod" <[email protected]> Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 17:58:10 -0500 It finally happened. After years of being limited to our 56K Modem (which only connected at 41K anyway), cable modems became available in our area. As you can imagine, the Issod family was one of the first to call up and order one. THe service is provided by @home, and is run through our local cable = provider. The price - about 40 bucks per month, which includes the cost of renting the cable modem. Since we have 5 computers in our home and office to hook up, I purchased a U-Gate Plus, which is a device that lets up to 50 users share one cable modem...cost about $277.- but I sold my 3Com 56K = multi-user router/modem on eBay for $212.50, so that's almost a wash. The service - certain things are really fast: like dowloading programs. I downloaded apple MaOS 8.6 update, a 36 Megabyte file in less than five minutes. Such a file would have taken hours before..and I would not even have attempted it. Other services, such as certain web pages, may not seem to download a lot faster than a modem connection. This is because there are lots of snags elsewhere on the net, and even if my modem is quick, there is still a traffic jam somewhere along the way. Still, it is faster, and it is always on - no waiting for it to dial-up. I'll also be able to get rid of one phone line with the associated savings in monthly charges. Should you get one? If you have a business with multiple users you'd like to connect to the net, it could be a relative bargain. Other high-speed options (dedicated lines, ISDN, DSL) are usually more expensive. For your home? If you have more than one computer...and/or spend a lot of time on the internet it could easily pay for itself buy reducing the WWW (World-Wide-Wait). ------------------------------------------------------ Craig Issod HearthNet at http://www.hearth.com [email protected] Everything your Hearth Desires ------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------