Cox Cable Modems Catch On in Springdale

Dennis Yocum, Cox Communications Inc.’s system manager for Northwest Arkansas, said the company has achieved an 11 percent saturation rate for cable modem use among its subscribers in Springdale.

The company, based in Atlanta with a regional office in Springdale, wouldn’t disclose the number of cable subscribers it has in the area. But Yocum said Cox’s cable modem use grows each week.

Introduced last summer in Springdale, the service is expected to slowly spread across Fayetteville in about three to four months. Some areas of Rogers and Bentonville already have cable modem access. All of Rogers should have access by midsummer.

Jason Hall, Cox’s regional product manager for high-speed data, said that “once the lightbulb turns on in customers’ minds as to how different cable modems are,” they are hooked on the product.

“It’s hard to reconcile in your mind how much money $300,000 or $1 million is,” Hall said. “It’s like that. Cable modems are up to 30 times faster than 28K modems, and that drastically reduces the time it takes you to get what you’re looking for online.

“When people sit down at a cable modem for the first time and go to their favorite Web site, as soon as they see how fast it is, they’re like, ‘I have to have this.'”

Cox, America’s fourth-largest cable company, has demonstration sites set up at The Computer Outlet in the Center Point Place shopping center and at Computers Plus on Emma Avenue, both in Springdale.

The holdup for Fayetteville, Yocum said, has been a $25 million complete cable system conversion that was needed to make the city’s cable architecture bidirectional.

Instead of an old, one-way truck and branch system, Fayetteville is being outfitted with the same fiber node architecture that Springdale already has.

Four to six nodes will be operational this spring in Fayetteville, and Cox will add two per month after that.

“Obviously, it’s in our interest to get it complete as quickly as possible so that we can start getting a return on our investment,” Yocum said. “I just hope we can go fast enough to keep our corporate office happy.”