If the cable companies have their way, that coaxial wire in your office or living room may soon become your primary information pipeline, courtesy of an upgraded TV system and a cable modem. In a word, bandwidth. Coaxial cable has plenty to spare even after delivering NYPD Blue and E.R. to your television. By comparison, standard analog phone lines max out at 33Kbps, while digital ISDN lines can go only as high as 128Kbps in most cases. All this bandwidth translates into speed.
Web pages appear almost instantly.
File downloads that take 10 minutes with a 28.8Kbps modem arrive in less than 30 seconds. And equally deep-pocketed network players are working to ensure that it happens. Time Warner, and Viacom are investing billions of dollars into upgrading their TV networks to handle two-way traffic. And all of them are conducting live trials. These modems will most likely be external boxes that connect to your PC via a standard Ethernet port.