You will agree that accessing the Internet through normal modems, be it from
office or home, is not the easiest thing in the world to do. One of the
alternatives that’s becoming popular among home users is a cable modem. In
this article, we’ll take a closer look at cable modems and see what makes them
tick.
Cable Internet means accessing the Internet through the same cable that
brings TV channels like Star, Zee, and MTV into your homes. The two main devices
which make this possible are a Cable Modem Termination System (CMTS), which has
to be installed at your cablewallah or broadband service provider’s end, and a
cable modem, which has to be installed in your home. Simply put, a cable modem
is a device that lets you access the Internet through your Cable TV (CATV)
network. Cable modems come in three different flavors:
External cable modems
The most common type of cable modem available today, this is a small device,
similar to ordinary dial-up external modems. But that’s where the similarity
ends. One side of the cable modem connects to the coaxial cable coming from your
local cable operator, and the other side connects to your PC through an Ethernet
interface. So you’ll need an additional network card inside your PC to connect
this. An Ethernet cable will connect your PC to the cable modem. An obvious
advantage of the Ethernet interface is that you can easily connect more
computers to the cable modem by attaching a hub to it.
When everything else is going USB, it’s not surprising that cable modems
are also available with a USB interface. This means you don’t need to buy an
additional network card and installation will also be easier. On the flip side,
you can only connect a single PC to a USB cable modem. Internal cable modems
| 
