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To: Henry Spencer <henry@zoo.toronto.edu>
cc: Richard Foulk <richard@pegasus.com>, hardware@freebsd.org,
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Subject: Re: cable vs. ISDN 
In-reply-to: Your message of Sat, 06 Jul 1996 10:58:52 EDT.
             <Pine.3.89.9607061043.A22356-0100000@zoo.toronto.edu> 
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 00:04:06 -0400
From: "Jacob M. Parnas" <jparnas@jparnas.cybercom.net>
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In message <Pine.3.89.9607061043.A22356-0100000@zoo.toronto.edu>you write:
>> >Cable has a good chance of blowing ISDN away.  Much faster and cheaper.  And
>> >it will be available in many places this year.  More, next.
>> 
>> Cable is a pain.  It works only one way.  If you want to send a large file
>> you still have to go slow.  And, you still need to be a member of a ISP
>> as you can't write to cable, from what I've read.
>
>Depends on how good your local cable system is.  The cable-data system
>that Rogers Cable is introducing in the Toronto area is two-way (with
>symmetrical bandwidth, amazingly enough, or at least that's the way it was
>in the prototype system).

That's wonderful, but unfortunately rare.  Also, unlike ISDN, its not portable
to much if not most of North America and other countries.

>Incidentally, harking back to the original theme of this discussion :-),
>the hardware used for the Rogers prototype talked to the computers by 
>Ethernet.

As pointed out earlier, isn't ethernet tcp/ip based or some other network
protocol based.  What if one wants to communicate below that level?
Otherwise, if its inexpensive enough, fast enough and doesn't use unnecessary
hardware, I think it would be fine.

>                                                           Henry Spencer
>                                                       henry@zoo.toronto.edu

Jacob