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To: Henry Spencer <henry@zoo.toronto.edu>
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In-reply-to: Your message of Sat, 06 Jul 1996 20:10:21 EDT.
             <Pine.3.89.9607062047.A3852-0100000@zoo.toronto.edu> 
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 02:01:18 -0400
From: "Jacob M. Parnas" <jparnas@jparnas.cybercom.net>
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In message <Pine.3.89.9607062047.A3852-0100000@zoo.toronto.edu>you write:
>
>That's what people are trying to tell you:  CABLE DOES NOT HAVE TO BE
>ONE-WAY.  When he says "both directions", he really does mean both, as in
>bidirectional. 
>
>Some places with old cable systems are stuck with unidirectional 
>transmission, and that means going the other way by phone modem, which
>is marginally satisfactory at best.  Modern cable systems can do better.

That's great!  I've been near several major cities and they were all in the
future and "coming soon" but unidirectional.  I'm sorry and I stand corrected.

>> ...that 3-8 mbits/second,  Usually without putting a whole new
>> set of cables underground (or above), its bandwidth would be split by many
>> users and the for 1000 users, on average, that's the same as 3-8 Kbits per
>> second...
>
>The bandwidth is indeed split, but the question of "by how many users"
>does not have a simple answer -- it depends on what the cable company has
>done.  Note that the splitting is *not*, in general, over the entire
>metropolitan area -- the cable company can and does subdivide.  The folks
>in the Rogers Toronto-area experiment say that the net effective data rate
>did vary depending on load, but it was always a lot faster than phone
>modems. 

I thought that while it was pretty easy to add a new ISDN server, it was
hard to add a new cable.  This would seem to be a problem, especially if
this was done in bulk.  But since it is bidirectional now (I really hadn't 
heard that, when did that start?) it seems very attractive.  I wish our
cable company would do it.

>> And if you have to move, you may be out of luck.
>
>ISDN has the same problem.

I thought ISDN was a bit more common and standardized, but I could be wrong.

Also, how much are the charges for installation, equipment and any monthly/
packet/etc charges?

Thanks, Jacob

>                                                           Henry Spencer
>                                                       henry@zoo.toronto.edu