Price is a key consideration, as is standards compatibility, and of course, product performance.
Each product performed quite well, but key differences were uncovered. Cisco Systems Inc. provided its uBR7246 CMTS for the test bed and Spirent Communications contributed its TAS 8250 HFC network emulator. Another workstation with Agilent Internet Advisor was connected to the network for traffic measurement and analysis. FTP and HTTP transmissions were then tested to replicate Web surfing sessions, arguably the test that is most relevant to consumers. Finally, SAP and Lotus Notes sessions were run to test each modem's performance in a sample telecommuting application.