Cable leads In January 1998, Time Warner's Road Runner cable modem service claimed 1,500 subscribers in the Tampa Bay area. Now, it has more than 65,000. But the effects of growth irritate some cable subscribers, who complain about slowdowns and outages, problems related to how a cable system works. Unlike DSL, which gives a customer a personal connection to the Internet, cable modem systems are like party lines serving a particular area, such as a neighborhood. It's usually not a problem if only a few people are on the system but slows as more people go online.
Speeds can vary widely hour by hour, even minute by minute.
Road Runner advertises speeds up to 50 times faster than a 56K modem, but it's a level that's rarely if ever achieved. Recent speed checks on a home computer calculated speeds 15 to 25 times faster than a 56K modem. Road Runner also has taken on some bigger customers, such as the Pinellas County school system and the city of St. Petersburg, but Bailey says those have not affected system performance either. Too many subscribers is not the only potential problem. Some people hog the system.