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Cool rules
Why are some of the best minds of our generation working on a better way to send out party invitations?
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[09/22/99]

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Chapter 55: Barry's Singularity -- ship without a captain
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Network Solutions fumbles its free e-mail scheme. Can we trust it with our Net addresses?
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"The Gorilla Game" goes out on a limb, encouraging us to invest in -- duh! -- big companies that dominate rapidly expanding markets.
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[09/20/99]

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Mr. Fix-it
After a summer of outages, eBay recruited Maynard Webb to be chief of technologies and shore up the auction site's systems.
By Sean Donahue
[09/20/99]

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I don't crack the dictionary on my bookshelf anymore. With my cable modem, it's faster to fire up a Web browser and hit Merriam-Webster's Dictionary site. I've also stopped looking at the atlas that I carry around in my car. Instead, I hit an Internet map site and print out turn-by-turn directions to my destination before I leave home.

But not everyone has embraced cable modems with the same fervor. Lots of my readers are concerned about the performance, security and reliability of cable modems.

"Your available bandwidth decreases when the other users in your neighborhood are online. Have you had any problem with this?" asked one reader. Another wrote from California: "Some people here complain that because the bandwidth is shared with everyone on the block, and because cable modems are very popular in the Bay Area, that they don't have enough bandwidth ... Compared to DSL the speeds are not all that great."

Others are very concerned about the privacy of their personal information and the security of their home computers. A woman who works for a public relations firm in Silicon Valley shared this story: "My associate recently installed a cable modem in her home and was shocked to find that 'Network Neighborhood' was, literally, her neighborhood! She could see the desktops of all her connected neighbors. This seems like an enormous oversight on the part of cable modem companies, or maybe they just don't care (more likely the latter.)" Lots of readers want to know if it's possible for an attacker to break into their computers and access confidential files or plant viruses.

When it comes to reliability, people voice justifiable concern that their local cable company doesn't offer a high-quality television server, so it seems even more doubtful that they will provide high-quality Internet service. After all, wrote Sang Yul Shin, a reader of mine in Boston, "Cable companies tend to lag in technical expertise and service."

These fears about renegade cable modems have provided phone companies and Internet providers with noisy ammunition for their PR battle. This July, the New York Times ran an article "High-Speed Lines Leave Door Ajar for Hackers," discussing the security pitfalls of leaving a computer constantly connected to the Internet. A few days later Amy McIntosh, president of Bell Atlantic Consumer Data Services, wrote a letter to the editor saying the article "incorrectly implies that home computer users with 'always on' Internet connections are as vulnerable to attacks from hackers whether they use a cable modem or DSL ... DSL service is inherently more secure than using a cable modem because DSL provides a dedicated connection over your existing telephone line. A cable modem is more susceptible to hackers since it operates on a shared system, much like an old-fashioned party line."

When I wrote an article about the launch of Bell Atlantic's DSL service in April, I commented on the disappointing results: Bell Atlantic showed circuits that could theoretically deliver 600 Kbps and 7 Mbps. But my tests showed that both delivered roughly the same performance --- about half the speed of my cable modem. The next day, I received an e-mail message from John Johnson, a company spokesman. "I thought the emphasis on milliseconds of difference in cable modem/DSL performance was misplaced," he said. "The bigger picture, in my view, is that DSL gives users dedicated bandwidth. While you yourself may not have run into the slowdowns that other cable modem users have found at peak hours, I'm confident it's only a matter of time before you do. When that happens, I hope you'll describe the benefits of dedicated bandwidth to your readers."

Internet service providers have another legitimate fear about cable modems: They offer high-speed service at a price that most ISPs can't touch. Consider the cable modem service that I purchase from MediaOne. For $51.50 a month, I get a service that routinely delivers between 300 and 600 kilobits per second in both directions. For comparison, ISPs in Boston that are selling high-speed service are charging roughly $200 a month for 384 Kbps and $300 a month for 768 Kbps.

One of the reasons that cable service costs less than DSL is because it's a shared facility. A coaxial cable traveling in a neighborhood from house to house can provide high-speed service to thousands of customers. A single piece of equipment at the cable company's office can patch those thousands of customers onto the Internet. DSL, on the other hand, requires a separate pair of wires for each subscriber: The phone company needs to install a special DSL "modem" for each phone line at its central office. So high-speed Internet service delivered over cable should be less expensive than the same service delivered over a DSL link.

And cable companies are particularly eager to sign up cable modem users. Across the nation, customers have demonstrated that they are more than willing to pay between $30 and $50 per month extra for high-speed Internet access; that's substantially more than the cost of a typical premium cable channel like Showtime or HBO. What's more, the same two-way digital networks that allow companies like MediaOne to deliver the Internet can also be used to deliver telephone service, further increasing cable revenues. The Internet makes it possible for cable companies to double or triple their revenues -- using much of their existing infrastructure.

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