More about my cable modem

By David Norton 

A few weeks ago, I posted an article about my cable modem. To sum up the column, I love my cable modem's speed, however for some unexplainable reason, the modem would 'not work' every other morning for a few hours. This had been happening ever since the cable modem had been installed (interestingly, the first time it happened was while the cable technician was still here... but he brushed it off as one-time).

Although I didn't mean to, the way I wrote my other article it sounded as if this happened with all cable modems. I'm sorry, that's not what I was saying. It was just a note of what was happening with my setup.

To continue last issue's story, I was finally able to get ahold of @Home's tech support (after being led through a long phone menu), and they decided it was something the local cable company would have to check out (surprise!). I got a ticket number, called them, and scheduled for some technicians to come out the next day. They decided something along these lines: it must have been that since we don't get cable TV, we were getting too strong of a signal, and the modem was trying to reset itself. They did something to tune down the signal, although it wouldn't slow down our internet.

I am proud to say that I have only experienced one more downtime since then, and my cable modem has been working at full speed (I downloaded something at 220K/sec earlier today...).

Simply saying it's fast is not enough to understand the full benefits of having a cable modem, however. With the router set up, we can share the connection to as many computers as can be plugged in, with pretty much no slow down. Since it is always connected, I can merely open up my email application to check my email - no more waiting to dial in. It is also entirely possible to do many things (listen to QuickTime streams, check email, surf the web, use AIM) all at once, without the web slowing down, the stream skipping, or the AIM messages lagging.

Cable modems rock!

David Norton says hi to all his good friends that don't read his MacMilitia.com columns. He also welcomes his geeky friends that do.  

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