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Dow Jones & Company Inc Aug 24, 1993 Cable television will connect to the Internet, information pathway to millions of personal-computer users world-wide, early next year through a direct linkup via Continental Cablevision Inc., one of the nation's largest cable operators.
The service, which could greatly alter delivery of electronic information, would allow Continental's customers to plug PCs and a special modem directly into Continental's cable lines, said William Schrader, president of Performance Systems International Inc., a Herndon, Va., network services company that is Continental's partner in the project.
The cable link would bypass local phone and other special hookups to access the Internet directly. More significantly, it would allow customers using PCs to fetch whole kinds of information, downloading quickly on books and other data from the world's greatest libraries. This text would move at "information superhighway" speeds -- at as fast as 10 million bits a second, rather than the comparatively sluggish speed of 2,400 bits a second from conventional phone-modem hookups, Mr. Schrader said.
More than just high-capacity reception, however, the high-speed link would give users many things they can't get today. It promises to bring multimedia services through the cable line to the home or business, including TV-quality video and even high-fidelity music through the personal computer.
"This isn't some fluffy pie-in-the-sky vision," said David Fellows, a senior vice president at Continental. Added Mr. Schrader: "Other companies, such as Time Warner Inc. in Orlando, are talking about elaborate multimedia service tests, but our plan is small, simple and easy; this will work."
But while the new service holds much promise, no one is sure what consumer demand will be, especially at an estimated cost of $70 to $100 a month. Indeed, it was consumer outrage over escalating cable rates that drove Congress to pass the 1992 Cable Act.
Performance Systems, which provides a means for computer customers to hook up to the Internet system, plans to install computer "routers" in the Continental network. These systems keep the data traffic flowing uniformly and quickly by scrutinizing the incoming information, instantly figuring out where it is headed and placing it in electronic packets before sending it on its way. The routers will be installed in the main hubs or "head-end" facilities in Continental's vast network, allowing an easy extension of the new Internet service to homes and businesses tethered to the cable company. For the customer's home or business computer, Performance Systems will provide a special computer modem to reach the service.
The two companies plan to announce the service plan today at an industry trade show in San Francisco. The first hookups are scheduled to take place in Cambridge, Mass., where Continental has many subscribers connected to Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The planned service is only the latest of uses for the fast-growing Internet, the world's biggest computer network -- a network of networks, in fact. Traffic growth is estimated at a staggering 10% a month, fueled largely by new commercial, foreign and student users. A cable-TV link could well accelerate that rate.
Experts say more than 10,000 computer networks, with perhaps 15 million to 20 million users in more than 50 countries, plug into the Internet. Growth, they say, is limited only by the complexity of the interchanges at which users enter this "information highway," the model for the information superhighway of the future advocated by the Clinton administration.
Currently, all that binds these users is "a common protocol that lets them work together," explained Douglas Van Houweling, vice provost for information technology at the University of Michigan and a board member of Merit Network Inc. Merit, in a partnership with International Business Machines Corp. and MCI Communications Corp., runs the National Science Foundation Network, the Internet's high-speed backbone.
Simplifying user access, as Continental Cablevision proposes, will determine whether Internet will serve the computing masses or remain a route traveled only by scientists, researchers, professors and students, say current users.
"We're still building the road to usability," said Ed Krol, an assistant director at the University of Illinois's Computing and Communications Service Office and author of Internet guidebooks. "We currently have one lane and a lot of men working."
Meantime, big entertainment and telephone companies such as American Telephone & Telegraph Co., Time Warner and U S West Inc. are building their versions of the superhighway they say will pump interactive movies, games, home shopping and other multimedia fare through TV sets to U.S. homes.
Many Internet aficionados don't want to be left out of the home market. At a recent meeting in Amsterdam, the volunteers who figure out how to keep the network moving forward began grappling with ways to improve the Internet's ability to carry audio and video traffic. Earlier this year, Internet guru Carl Malamud launched the network's first computer-radio talk show, each week interviewing a computer expert. He's now making technical arrangements for Congress's first hearing on the Internet -- to be carried live on the Internet.
Rep. Edward Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat who heads the Telecommunications and Finance subcommittee, wants the hearing to be an eye-opener for lawmakers and their aides, few of whom are familiar with data highways let alone have mastered the Internet's abstruse rules.
Just how frustrating is it? "It is as if you were to invite me to dinner and give your address in longitude and latitude," said Larry Irving, who as head of the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration has a lead role in shaping the information superhighway. Mr. Irving's goals include expanding access to the Internet. "Right now, it is basically utilized by computer hacks," Mr. Irving says. "We need to work with existing users to make it more accessible to the general public."
Students or employees at institutions or companies already hooked into the Internet need only acquire an access code that allows them to dial up the host computer, type in a password and log on. Others must subscribe to an on-line service such as CompuServe, Prodigy, the Well or, next year, Continental Cablevision. A growing number of public libraries also offer Internet links.
Still, the pathways to information remain tortuous. A recent first-time traveler on the Internet encountered interactive instructions such as "Try Gopher . . . and WWW, too. IMPORTANT NOTE: If you try GOPHER or ARCHIE or WAIS and the screen display does not look right or respond properly . . . Read the HELP file on Troubleshooting (type HELP at the SIG main menu and SCAN the files for the Troubleshooting file)."
Finally connected to the library at Italy's University of Pisa, the user sought information about the Leaning Tower but received instead a yarn about an oriental witch in a tower.
Despite obscure computerese, Internet in the past three years has begun to reach primary and secondary schools, businesses and many individuals with PCs, modems and patience. Most individuals use dial-up services such as CompuServe, while businesses generally get connections through commercial providers such as Performance Systems and Advanced Networks & Services of Ann Arbor, Mich.
"The thing that ropes most people into using the Internet is electronic mail with colleagues all over the world," said Mr. Krol at the University of Illinois. "That's becoming more important, especially as travel budgets tighten and people want to save time as well as money."
Once on the network, users can subscribe to "mailing lists" that let them receive newsletters or exchange electronic mail on hundreds of topics ranging from computer and network management issues to quilting, railroads, Shakespeare, 3-D photography, brewing beer at home and music. The Internet also boasts a large collection of support groups for people with various ailments from AIDS to workplace injuries.
On campus, Mr. Krol said, "students get Internet accounts as they walk in the door, and for those in engineering and hard sciences, it is becoming harder and harder to survive without electronic messaging to communicate with professors and peers."
Much business demand for Internet connections is driven by newly minted college graduates, many of whom were hooked on the Internet before their first semester. Joel Holveck, a recent San Angelo, Texas, high school graduate with a perfect 800 on his math SATs, chose Texas A&M based in part on the prospect of a direct Internet connection in his dorm room.
As their students become more reliant on the Internet, universities are scrambling to upgrade computer connections to dormitory rooms. At Illinois, Mr. Krol says, about 35% of the students use computers in their dorm rooms, and the university has begun linking dormitories directly to the campus network.
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Mark Robichaux contributed to this article.
Credit: Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal
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