Cable Modems (era 1990)


        Stephen O'Brien foresees the advent of global distributed computing

     Imagine a world where the Internet poured into yourcomputer 800 times faster than the 
 fastest modem. Bottlenecks would become little more than a bad memory with the total bandwidth 
 available growing from a Murray-sized inlet to a magnificent Niagara torrent. Imagine, also,
 that your connection to this incredible world entered your home through a single coaxial 
 cable; a connection that could be shared, free of charge, between any number of computerised 
 devices.
    Believe it or not, that future is already here, and cable modems are the key. Extended trials
 have already taken place around the world, and telecommunications companies including our own --
 well, someone's - Telstra are champing at the bit to bring them online.
    The chief delay so far, at least in areas where cable connections are standard, has been 
 caused by the technology being so incredibly sophisticated. No one can work out how to squeeze
 the devices into a box that will cost less than $500.
    Cable modem technology uses the same coaxial cable as that already installed for cable TV ser-
 vices. In that respect, we have the march on the US because Australian cable is all two-way,
 whereas more than 80% of the cable installed in the US is stifled by a one-way flow. Obviously,
 for them, this puts the kybosh on interactive experiences such as exploring the World Wide Web 
 or buying goodies online.
      Still, there are workarounds. For instance, a phone-line based link such as an ordinary 
 modem could be used to send user responses back to the cable company with the user-prompted 
 results with the bulk of the information traveling down the lines to the consumer over the far
 faster coaxial installation. Cable modems are the Plug and Play answer to our communication 
 problems. They will probably even replace the telephone system.
    You see, a cable modem won't just offer you access to the Internet. It will act as the portal
 through which your residence's local network system will remain permanently connected to the
 outside world. Telephones are just the beginning. HDTV (high-definition television) has been 
 lurking around the corner for the last decade. Now, just when it seems all of the standards are
 in place, its role will be subsumed by the equivalent of a large-screen computer monitor. .
    This will be controlled by a full or cut-down PC with a DVD (digital versatile disc) player
 that will also provide access to interactive services such as movies on demand, standard cable
 broadcasts, information kiosks, online shopping malls and more. Cable modems represent the best
 opportunity Telstra, Foxtel and Optus have of paving the way for the technologies that will
 define the 21st century.   For the first time, the world will be connected to a permanent, 
 powerful network. 
     Information will flash back and forth at speeds hitherto unheard of. As the number of people
 connected explodes past many times today's level, the numbers will at last be there to upgrade
 the international links to ultra-high speed optical fibre. This upgrade to the Internet's 
 backbone will be strengthened with more intelligent multicasting and caching, ensuring thousands
 of copies of an identical chunk of data don't clog the Net's smaller channels.
    Satellite, undersea cable,microwave transmitters and all kinds of communication devices
 will cooperate to form a single massive tract of bandwidth and,almost before you can say
 Thinking Machines, the highly-distributed, massively parallel CPU will leap into existence.
    Consider this. As I type this document, my 150MHz Pentium CPU is using only about 1% of its
 power. Frankly, if someone in a neighbouring office, street, suburb or city wanted to use the 
 rest of that grunt to photographically render Quake IV in real time, who am I to complain? It
 doesn't use up any more electricity, and I can feel assured that when I want to cut loose and
 stomp on some aliens, I'll also be able to borrow a little computing power from my pick of 
 thousands of other CPUs. Of course, it's quite a jump from cable modem to global distributed
 computing, but it can be accomplished one step at a time. PCs were the first. The Internet
 the second. Are cable modems the third? You can bet your ISP on it.

                   Credits   "Stephen O'Brien" Thank's