Cable Modems and OS/2: Conclusions

With the good, comes...

o service is perfect, and so far I have run into a few problems with my cable modem too. First, and most important, is the problem mentioned earlier regarding access to some FTP sites. There appear to be two different problems at work here. The first is with the way Access Cable has set up their network. They pull some trickiness with IP addresses so some FTP sites refuse anonymous access because they can not do a "reverse name server lookup". The second problem appears to be with UUNet, the company that sells Internet backbone service to Access Cable. For some reason, some FTP sites have strange lag-time behaviours when I try to access them through UUNet. Access Cable is working to fix both these problems and neither is a show-stopper for now.

I must admit that another glitch I observed in the first few days of the service gave me some satisfaction. The DHCP server (and name server, which is on the same machine) at Access Cable runs Windows NT and the machine crashed (badly) one night. Service was out for about 6 or 8 hours and when it was restored, for some reason my machine didn't automatically reconnect like it was supposed to. When I spoke with tech support, they were very friendly, despite my use of OS/2, and even agreed with me that NT might not have been the best choice for a mission-critical server.

A few other times, there have been short hiccups in the service, but nothing remarkable, and certainly less than with many dialup ISPs. Despite the problems described above, overall, Access Cable's Internet service has been very good and the system has worked nearly flawlessly with OS/2.

The price of all this bliss

As I mentioned earlier, Access Cable, like many other providers, is requiring that users have at least basic cable TV service. If you are like me and did not subscribe to cable television, this can add Cdn$15 - $20 per month to the cost of 'net connectivity. And the cost of that connectivity is not exactly cheap either. The monthly fee in Dartmouth is Cdn$65 per month (about US$45), including the rental of the cable modem. If you're willing to commit to one year of service, this price drops to Cdn$55 per month.

There is also an installation fee of Cdn$150 at the time of hookup for the service (and an installation charge for cable TV service too, but that was waived in my case). "Luckily" many companies are currently "discounting" this installation fee by $100 so the total for installation is really only $50, and you do get to keep the Ethernet card. And, of course, there is tax on all these prices (15% here -- your rate will, of course, differ).

This may seem like a lot to you, but one well known OS/2er put forth a good argument on Usenet. Ethan Hall-Beyer said:

Given that the $55 a month it is costing me equals the rate I paid for a dedicated 2nd phone line + unlimited monthly modem ISP, I can't complain too much! I had X2 before, and this is oodles better.

If you need verification of that logic: he's right!

Cable, cable, cable

So is it worth it?

In a word, YES!

I waited in anticipation for over a year for my cable modem access. I visited Access Cable's offices frequently and called them repeatedly. I even stopped the marketing manager in a local grocery store one time to grill him on the latest ETA of the service (sorry Michael). Despite that wait and the anticipation it built, I am not disappointed with the reality of the situation.

Most importantly for me, the service is basically transparent to the OS you use. While most cable companies will not officially support OS/2 or other advanced OS's, those OS's themselves should have little trouble handling a typical cable modem hookup. In a world that's moving ever more rapidly towards Microsoft standardization, this is a refreshingly intelligent acknowledgement that many of us do use other software.

Overall, I'd say for anyone who is more than a casual user of the Internet, the benefits of cable modem service will outweigh the slightly higher cost. And besides, don't you want to tell your friends about the "unbearably slow" 30 kBps file transfer you just had to endure? <g>