Cable Modems: How Road Runner and @Home Are Changing the Game

Forget everything you thought you knew about your cable TV wire. That coaxial cable bolted to the side of your house — the one that pipes in HBO and Cartoon Network — is about to become the fastest internet connection most Americans have ever touched.

Two companies are leading the charge: Time Warner's Road Runner service and Excite@Home (originally @Home Network, now merged with the Excite portal). Between them, they're wiring up millions of households with cable internet that blows dial-up into oblivion.

What Cable Internet Actually Delivers

The numbers are staggering compared to what most of us are used to. A typical cable modem connection in 1999 delivers 1.5 to 3Mbps downstream — that's roughly 27 to 54 times faster than a 56k modem. Upload speeds are more modest, usually 128kbps to 384kbps, but that's still plenty for sending email attachments and the occasional file upload.

To be concrete about what that speed difference means in practice:

| Task | 56k Dial-Up | Cable Modem (1.5Mbps) | |------|-------------|----------------------| | Load a typical web page | 15-30 seconds | 1-2 seconds | | Download a 4MB MP3 | 10+ minutes | ~22 seconds | | Download a 50MB software update | 2+ hours | ~4.5 minutes |

The experience is qualitatively different. Web browsing on cable internet feels instantaneous compared to dial-up. Graphics-heavy sites like ESPN and CNET — which can take 30 seconds or more to fully load on a modem — pop up in a second or two. Napster becomes genuinely usable (for legal purposes, of course). Streaming RealVideo actually streams instead of buffering every three seconds.

Road Runner: The Cable Giant

Time Warner launched Road Runner in 1996 and has been expanding methodically ever since. The service is now available in over 30 markets, including New York, Tampa, Houston, Milwaukee, and Portland. Pricing runs about $40 to $45 per month for existing Time Warner Cable subscribers, with a higher rate — around $55 — if you don't subscribe to cable TV.

Road Runner provides its own portal and email service (those @rr.com addresses), but the real selling point is raw speed. Time Warner advertises speeds "up to 50 times faster than dial-up," which is slightly optimistic but not outrageous. In real-world testing, sustained downloads tend to land in the 1 to 2Mbps range, with occasional bursts above that.

The hardware is straightforward. Time Warner installs a cable modem — typically a Motorola SURFboard or Toshiba unit — and connects it to your PC via Ethernet or USB. Installation runs about $100 to $150, though promotional deals often waive or reduce this fee. The modem is leased for roughly $10/month, included in some plans.

Excite@Home: The Other Powerhouse

Excite@Home has a different business model. Rather than owning cable systems outright, @Home partners with cable operators — including Comcast, Cox Communications, Cablevision, and AT&T Broadband (which just bought TCI). This gives @Home a massive potential reach across the country.

Pricing is competitive with Road Runner: about $40 to $50 per month depending on the local cable operator. Speeds are similar, with the service advertising up to 3Mbps downstream. @Home also bundles its Excite portal and email, though most subscribers just want the fast pipe and ignore the portal entirely.

Combined, Road Runner and @Home now serve well over 2 million cable internet subscribers in the U.S. — a number that's growing by hundreds of thousands each quarter.

The Shared Bandwidth Question

DSL providers love to point out cable's biggest theoretical weakness: shared bandwidth. Unlike DSL, where each subscriber gets a dedicated connection to the central office, cable internet users on the same neighborhood node share a pool of bandwidth. The concern is that when everyone on your block gets home at 6 PM and starts downloading, your speeds will crater.

In practice, this has been a mixed bag. Some early cable internet users in densely populated areas have reported noticeable slowdowns during prime time. But the cable companies aren't stupid — they're continually splitting nodes and adding capacity to keep per-user bandwidth reasonable. In most markets, cable internet is consistently faster than DSL throughout the day, slowdowns and all.

The honest answer is that shared bandwidth is a real architectural difference, but for most users in 1999, it doesn't matter enough to outweigh cable's speed advantage. If your choice is between 1.5Mbps cable that sometimes dips to 800kbps in the evening and 384kbps DSL that's rock-steady, the cable connection still wins for most tasks.

What You Need to Get Started

Getting cable internet is easier than DSL in most cases. Here's the checklist:

• Cable TV service area: You need to live where Road Runner, @Home, or another cable internet provider operates. This doesn't necessarily mean you need a cable TV subscription, though it usually costs more without one.
• Professional installation: A technician comes out, checks your cable signal, possibly runs a new line to your PC's location, and installs the cable modem. Budget 1-2 hours and $100-$150 for the install.
• A computer with Ethernet: Most cable modems connect via 10Base-T Ethernet. If your PC doesn't have a network card, the installer can usually add one for an extra fee ($30-$50). USB connections are also becoming available.
• Windows 95/98 or Mac OS: Both platforms work fine. Linux support is unofficial but doable if you know what you're doing.

Cable vs. DSL: The Short Version

Both cable and DSL represent a massive leap over dial-up, and honestly, either one will make you happy if you're coming from a 56k modem. But there are real differences.

Cable's advantages: generally faster speeds, wider availability in suburban areas, simpler installation. Cable's drawbacks: shared bandwidth, you're dependent on the cable company (which may not have the best customer service reputation).

DSL's advantages: dedicated bandwidth, runs over existing phone lines, more provider competition in some markets. DSL's drawbacks: speed depends on distance from the central office, availability is spotty, generally slower than cable at the same price.

For a detailed comparison, check out our cable vs. DSL breakdown.

Where This Is Going

Cable internet subscriber growth is accelerating fast. Industry analysts expect cable modems to overtake DSL in total subscribers by the end of this year, and the gap may widen from there. The cable companies have a structural advantage: their hybrid fiber-coaxial networks can deliver more bandwidth to each home than the phone companies' aging copper plant.

The next frontier is speed. Both Road Runner and @Home are testing faster tiers in select markets, and the DOCSIS 1.1 cable modem standard — expected to roll out widely next year — will enable better upstream speeds and quality-of-service features.

For now, if cable internet is available in your neighborhood and you're still on dial-up, stop reading and go order it. The $40/month is the best money you'll spend on technology this year.