Knowing how journalists love to gripe, it's a sure bet most of the press at this week's Western Show in Anaheim, Calif., will pick on CableLabs for not having verified any two-way cable modems to meet the Data Over Cable System Interface Spec. Admittedly, Docsis is taking a lot longer than optimists hoped, but how many cable TV multisystem operators (MSOs) out there would be ready with two-way hybrid fiber-coax plant to handle the two-way modems, anyway?
I think we should take a good look at the continued progress in deploying one-way cable modems vs. the inability of digital subscriber line technology to move outside the aggressive but small community of competitive local-exchange carriers. There's no better sign than my tiny local cable MSO, Tri-Lakes Cable ("serving the mountain communities of Monument, Palmer Lake and Larkspur"), which launched its beta program for one-way Com21 modems in mid-November.
Sure, US West Communications has begun limited ADSL trials in Denver and Colorado Springs, but they can't get to the far-flung neighborhoods served by loop carriers, which are precisely the locales where most of the Internet-addicted live. One wag in the sales department of Tri-Lakes Cable said, "DS-Smell? From U.S. Worst? You won't see it before 2003!" I have a feeling he's right.
The beta program for Tri-Lakes' cable modems won't be painless, and my colleague Stephan Ohr tells me that larger MSOs, such as Cox Communications in his neighborhood, are having their own growing pains. Tri-Lakes Online tried to hold a broadband fest in downtown Monument last month, bringing megabit downloads to a tiny mountain hamlet where cattle-feed stores fight for space with yuppie coffee bars. Unfortunately, RF interference problems caused in part by an earlier ice storm meant that everyone had to take the download claims on faith. The week before Thanksgiving, there were still a few IP address-resolution issues to resolve.
But I'm confident I'll have some rudimentary one-way services up by the time of the Western Show, and I'll update you on my experience. Tri-Lakes insists it will upgrade head ends with hybrid fiber-coax media, giving us Docsis compliance in a couple of years. That sounds better than xDSL time lines. While interviewing Turnstone Systems founder Kingston Duffie, I commiserated with him about the assistance regional phone companies will need to bring DSL up to cable-modem deployment levels. Turnstone's physical-provisioning tools should make it easy for the incumbent Baby Bells to roll the services out, but at this point, the phone companies need all the help they can get.
