Cable Industry Seeking Standard for Net-Capable Modems

By Summer Lopez
Web Week

February 1996

With lines running through 97 percent of residential America, cable TV theoretically has the potential to put the Internet at the fingertips of anyone with a remote control at a speed 1,000 times faster than telephone lines.

That effort comes together at CableLabs, the cable industry's research and development arm, which has announced a move to standardize modem connections with cable systems by April. At least 63 million sites already exist as part of the cable TV infrastructure, which will have to be overhauled and revamped in order to accommodate the growing market demand for two-way data transmission.

Mike Schwartz, vice president of communications at CableLabs, describes the project as a nonprofit, cooperative information clearinghouse and technology watchdog. "We're not competing with anybody, frankly," he said. "We want to foster an open process for standards specifications, which will bring production costs down."

There are eight interfaces that CableLabs will specify: the connection to the consumer's PC; the consumer radio-frequency interface, connecting the cable network to the home; five interfaces within the cable head-end or distribution hub, including router and operation-support-system interfaces; and an interface from the head-end to wide-area networks, to include Internet backbones and other global data networks.

CableLabs chairman John Malone acknowledged that cable operators have already purchased thousands of cable modems to date, but he pointed out that these modems are not interoperable. "We applaud the research that went into today's modems, and obviously wish to use it to get into the marketplace first," he said. "But in the next generation of modems, we look for more commonality in cable so that vendors may enjoy mass-market sales."

Plans to unveil the standard specifications for cable modems, or set-top boxes, may not come early enough for vendors and manufacturers. Those cable operators reluctant to wait until April will not be disappointed.

Motorola already has accepted 500,000 orders for its CyberSURFER modems, and Hewlett-Packard Co. also is contracted to produce 150,000 set-top boxes before the April deadline.

Although coaxial connections offer 1,000 times the bandwidth of the fastest available telephone network connection, the technology has its limitations. The nation's cable TV network, which has primarily been used for "downstream" or one-way transmissions, is subject to interference from police scanners, CB radios, and even Christmas lights.

A pilot scheme, Project Agora, is designed to test these and other problems in big "upstream," or two-way, applications.