No Waiting on the Web

By Chris O''Malley

Aside from the opposite sex, there may be nothing that mixes exhilaration and frustration quite like the Internet. Sure, we can drink from the world's biggest cup of knowledge, but for most of us, slow computer modems make it feel like we're sipping a chocolate shake through a cocktail straw.

But our straws are about to get fatter. A new wave of modems connected to cable TV and digital phone lines promises to replace today's click-and-crawl Internet with point-and-zoom services that instantly paint Web pages on your PC and rapidly download video clips and sound bites. Some cable companies already promise Internet access at speeds as fast as 3 million bits per second (BPS)--50 to 100 times the rate of standard analog phone-line modems. Not to be outdone, telephone companies plan a massive rollout of high-speed digital subscriber lines, or DSL.

Both of these bandwidth bandwagons are on a roll lately. At a gathering in Chicago this week, many of the country's largest cable and computer companies will plot speedy-modem marketing strategies with big electronics retailers like Circuit City and Radio Shack. This follows a recent agreement to make all cable modems work the same, so you can buy and install one yourself rather than staying home from work to have a cable guy install a leased modem for you (assuming he shows up).

About 350,000 lucky cybernauts are already plying the online universe at warp speed thanks to cable modems, according to Jupiter Communications, a New York City research firm. That's a tiny few compared with the 27 million Americans plodding along with home-PC modems running at 28,800 to 56,000 BPS. But cable companies are pouring billions into upgrading their networks to handle data traffic over the same wire that brings you ER and championship bass fishing. Tele-Communications Inc., Cox Communications, Comcast and more than a dozen other cable companies offer a high-speed online service called @Home that is available to about 10 million households. Time Warner Cable and MediaOne offer a similar service called Road Runner to 5 million more. Cost: about $40 a month.

Cable Internet service is expanding in a haphazard fashion, and when it will come to your neighborhood is anyone's guess. Meanwhile, demand is building as more Americans get spoiled by fast Web access at work. They would love to have the same thing at home--for online investing, say, or helping the kids find video clips of Martin Luther King Jr. speeches for their homework.

Another way to sate this need for speed is through DSL phone service, which enables your existing phone line to carry data at rates as fast as 1.5 million BPS. That's only half the maximum of many cable services, but DSL gives you "dedicated" bandwidth. Cable systems make you share bandwidth with other subscribers in your neighborhood, and things may bog down if you all go online after dinner. As with cable, DSL lets you stay "always on" the Internet since a single digital line can handle voice and data calls simultaneously.

Some regional Bell competitors, such as Covad Communications and NorthPoint Communications, are already offering DSL service in parts of Boston, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and other big cities. But service areas are spotty, and DSL is being sold mainly to small and midsize businesses--at prices as high as $250 a month. But now that the industry has just come up with a technical standard for residential service, many carriers are expected to shift their home DSL efforts into a higher gear. US West already offers consumers DSL service in more than a dozen states, for example, and BellSouth says it will begin rolling out DSL service to consumers in Atlanta; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Raleigh, N.C.; and four other Southeastern cities before the end of this year. Many of these services will offer less than full-throttle speeds and cost $60 or more a month, but they still spell relief from today's World Wide Wait.

There is a wild card in the Internet deck too: wireless services. Hughes Network Systems sells DirecPC and DirecDuo dishes (the latter with both Web and TV reception) that can download Web pages at a relatively brisk 200,000 to 400,000 BPS. Last month Loral's CyberStar unit joined the fray with a satellite system of its own. Both are more expensive than cable and DSL (monthly fees can run more than $100 for unlimited use), but satellite dishes can be used almost anywhere, including vacation cabins and other rural locations. Several companies are also experimenting with a ground-based wireless technology known as multichannel, multipoint distribution service, or MDDS. It's a mouthful, but it can deliver speeds as fast as 5 million BPS.

Whether a turbocharged Web connection fundamentally changes the way we use the Internet or merely caffeinates our clicking remains to be seen. Even the reigning king of online content, America Online, isn't sure. "The challenge is to find new content that is both really exciting and needs to be interactive--you can't just do a bad version of TV," says Bob Pittman, president of America Online. He has a team at AOL working on concepts. In the meantime, we'll take the speed.