How does cable phone service work?
For now, companies such as Cox Cable (page 34) are using their cable as a conventional phone wire. In the future, however, voice calls will be digitized, chopped into data packets, and mixed in with other data like E-mail and Web pages. That will lower costs and increase capacity. Companies like Cisco Systems Inc. and Lucent Technologies Inc. are racing to provide the gear to make voice-over-Internet calls possible, but there are still lots of kinks. Analysts don’t expect such systems to roll out before the end of 2000. Where does that leave the phone companies? Local phone companies have a way to wring broadband speed out of their copper wire. It’s called digital subscriber line, or DSL, and typically moves data at speeds between 128k and 1.5 megabits per second, although it can get up to 7 megabits per second. DSL service, which costs about the same as cable modem service–$30 to $60 a month–has not spread as fast as cable modem service (chart), due partly to a lack of aggressive ma
