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Cable modem - speedy, but dependable?
By David Norton
It finally happened. My family ordered cable modem service. Seeing as we've had it for over a month now, I feel prepared to offer my comments on the whole thing.
First, we had to overcome the extra cost. The local cable company, utilizing @Home, charges $40 per month for customers that do not subscribe to their cable TV service. There is an extra $15 per month charge to rent the cable modem (an RCA DCM235) itself, or you can pay $200 for it up front. Additionally, there was a $50 set-up fee.
The RCA Cable modem. This takes a cable and converts it to high-speed internet.
I already had an extra phone line just for the internet, and combined with dial-up ISP the total cost for internet was $40. Essentially, cable modems cost the same per month, only it has a somewhat large one-time fee.
We called our cable company, and set up an appointment later in the week for a cable technician to come out and install it. Within a few hours of him being there, he had the cable installed and running great! According to DSLReports, it is at least 32 times the speed of my previous connection (28.8). It's amazing!
The work area. Messy, as usual.
I am able to visit websites instantly. QuickTime movies (at highest quality) are loading quicker than they play. RealMedia streams actually work. And I don't have to worry about waiting for the MacAddict Disc to come to get the latest gargantuan game demo, I just download it. Basically, my biggest problem is with slow servers that aren't able to send me data as fast as my cable modem can receive it. But I don't mind it so much, because now I am able to do other things while a large download is going on.
Since the cable modem plugs in via an ethernet port, and I already had a small ethernet network going, I needed to figure something out. You can't just plug the cable modem directly into a hub, it doesn't work that way. So I bought a NetGear RT314 Cable modem router (Outpost.com carries it for $106.95). Integrating a four-port 10/100 Ethernet hub, this device lets you plug the modem into it's WAN (wide area network) port and then share the internet service to the computers connected to the hub. It also provides security through a firewall. It works great.
A close-up of our cable modem (white) on top of the router (blue).
The only problem with this whole cable modem thing is that about every other day, the cable modem will not get a signal for about two hours. I have tried talking to the cable company about this, but they directed me to talk to @Home's tech support, who said they'd get somebody from the cable company to look at it (and they never did). I'm going to call again sometime, when I've got time to waste on the phone. It sucks.
If you don't mind trading a couple hours of uptime for extremely fast internet access, my suggestion is to get cable modems as soon as you possibly can!! I don't regret the switch at all.
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