Cable Modem Technical Question....Help!!!

[Missingmeds]

Okay so here is the deal. I have a friend that lives in Georgia, Eaton to be exact. He tells me that his son has a cable modem in the basement room that he is using and that it requires one way phone access....

Now I use a cable modem and the reason for that is because I don't want to tie up my phone. Mine doesn't require a phone line at all. I have never heard of a cable modem requiring a one way phone access to work.

So can someone tell me if someone is being fed a line or what the circumstances are that someone would need a one way phone line access with a cable modem?

Thanks everyone...any info on this would be appreciated.

 

[Weird Harold]

Okay so here is the deal. I have a friend that lives in Georgia, Eaton to be exact. He tells me that his son has a cable modem in the basement room that he is using and that it requires one way phone access....

I think your friend is confusing "cable modem" with "broadband modem" -- specifically a satellite modem.

I suppose it's possible that the cable system in Eaton, GA only provides broadband digital downloads and requires an analog phone link for uploads in the same way that some Satellite data services do, but that's "ancient technology" for cable systems.

Many early data connections were dual speed connections because more data is recieved than is sent out by most end users. For example, my modem monitor program shows 481 KB received vs 209 KB sent out in the 1:35 I've been online for this session. I'd benefit from having a receive speed twice that of my send speed and early technology was setup just that way.

For a cable system, it's easier to send out data than it is to receive data -- you just encode the data for the intended recipient without having to red a reply signal of any kind. It takes more hardware (or at least more expensive hardware) to set up your system for two way connections through the cable than it does do set up hardware to recieve information over the phone line and send the response over the cable. The latter configuration can be done with PC technology.

 

[Missingmeds]

Thanks Weird Harold.

I know that I had never heard of it.

 

[Weird Harold]

Thanks Weird Harold.

I know that I had never heard of it.

I'd never heard of it in a cable modem setup before, but that's the only explanation I can think of that would require a phone line with a cable modem and some cable systems used to use a similar setup for pay-per-view billing.

 

[Missingmeds]

I wonder if that is what is going on? If they are going to be charged on a minute of use basis? Because that would be the only way that I would see it being profitable for the company in this day and age.

 

[Weird Harold]

I wonder if that is what is going on? If they are going to be charged on a minute of use basis? Because that would be the only way that I would see it being profitable for the company in this day and age.

I think it is probably fairly profitable even without a per-minute charge. It maybe the only workable technology without stringing the fiber optic infrastructure required for true bidirectional cable broadband and if they have the local franchise for cable service there's no profit in upgradng the infrastructure to fiber optics and provide better broadband capabilities than their non-existant competition.

 

[MagicFingers]

WH probably has it right, as always

When I got satelite TV, Dish, then Direct, they said it required a phone line hooked to it. I told them that wasn't going to happen, for several reasons, and got it hooked up anyway.
They just want a way for you to purchase PPV easily, and a way to comunicate with your box in case of loss of communications through the satelite path method.

I suspect that there is no reason they really need the phone line connected.
Have him disconnect the phone line and see it it still works, and wait to see if the company complains about it! That will tell him if it is needed.

 

[Weird Harold]

Re: WH probably has it right, as always

I suspect that there is no reason they really need the phone line connected.
Have him disconnect the phone line and see it it still works, and wait to see if the company complains about it! That will tell him if it is needed.

The phone line probably is needed for the send side of the link.

The kind of dual speed connection I think this is, is actually a good way of dealing with a copper wire infrastructure to provide a reliable connection on very old phone lines and cables.

It's possible your friend would not have any access to a reliable internet connection at any speed without this parallel connection setup because this setup is much more rsistant to errors in transmission than a more normal "asyncronous" connection through either the phoneline or the cable alone.