Phone, Cable Companies Line Up to Court Customers

Utilities want to provide Internet service, disagree over which medium is better, faster

The number of people wired to Internet access has grown dramatically in recent years and expectations are that there’s still enormous growth ahead.

As that occurs, there’s also a growing competition among companies who want to connect customers to the World Wide Web.

At the moment, it seems one of the most intense rivalries is between phone companies and cable companies. In Northwest Arkansas, that’s primarily Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. and Cox Communications Inc.

The result is a somewhat confusing — and ever-changing — array of options for consumers, businesses and residential alike, who may not be well-versed in technical details.

Southwestern Bell has plunged into the computer access business with gusto.

Project Pronto, as it’s dubbed, is the rollout of Bell’s high-speed Internet access services. The company began offering its Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line, commonly referred to as DSL, in Northwest Arkansas in December.

It’s not yet universally available throughout the region, although Bell expects that to happen eventually.

Bobby Ferrell, director of external affairs for Bell in the Fayetteville area, says the company has installed more than 200 miles of fiber-optic cable to provide the service. Bell’s total investment for Project Pronto, which includes the entire region served by the utility, both within and outside the state, is about $6 billion.

DSL is available at several levels. To get an idea of what each provides, consider this: Downloading a preview of the “Star Wars Episode 1” movie would take 14.4 minutes with a 28.8 kilobit analog modem. (That’s a modem that transmits 28.8 kilobits per second.) The same movie preview could be downloaded in about half the time — 7.4 minutes — on a 56k analog modem.

Use ADSL, as provided by Bell, and the movie preview is downloaded in less than 17 seconds. Bell’s HDSL service takes about the same amount of time.

But premium ADSL service takes only 4.1 seconds. That, Bell says, is 200 times faster than the 28.8k modem.

The drawback is that it’s a “distance-sensitive” service. Users must be within 17,500 feet of the central office.

Ferrell says Bell will extend its service by installing smaller computers in the field, eventually putting all its customers within range of DSL service.

Cable’s coming

Cable companies are itching to provide cable modem service and in Northwest Arkansas, Cox Communications is already signing up customers in portions of Springdale, Bentonville and Bella Vista.

“Cable modem is a completely revolutionary type of Internet access,” says Jason Hall, regional product manager for Cox Internet Services.

Hall explains that by using the existing cable service in a customer’s home or office — that’s one requirement for cable modem service: the customer must subscribe to basic cable service — the customer can access the Internet, receiving or sending information, without using a telephone line.

“It frees up your phone line. You never need phone again,” Hall says.

To provide cable modem service, Cox has rebuilt its cable system, replacing coaxial cable with a hybrid “fiber-coax technology,” Hall says.

“It’s what really enables us to deliver broad-band technology,” he says.

Cable and telephone companies are obviously trying to outdo each other.

Telephone companies, for example, contend that cable modem service slows as more users get on each loop.

“That’s true,” says Jeff Strout, director of network engineering for Cox Internet, “but what the phone companies don’t tell you is the Internet as a whole is a shared medium. Whether your traffic is shared in the neighborhood or whether it’s shared at the central office, that traffic is shared somewhere.”

Cable’s salvo at dial-up service is that it’s slower and customers have to be near the central office.

But since Cox can’t offer cable modem to all its cable customers, it also offers a dial-up service.

Perhaps the largest area in Northwest Arkansas still without any cable modem service is Fayetteville.

That’s been stalled because the city has been renegotiating its franchise agreement with Cox.

Still, Cox executives believe there’s a good market for their service, so they’ve begun the first steps of the massive rebuild program.

Dennis Yocum, Cox’s system manager for the region, explains that the first step is measuring and mapping the entire Fayetteville system, more than 500 miles of cable plant.

“Before you can design the new plant, you have to know how far it is from A Street to B Street,” he says. “All of that has to be very accurate, especially when you’re dealing with fiber-optic cable, which is all cut to length.”

Also, the system design — connecting points, etc. — will change, Yocum says, and that’s being designed by experts now. When that portion is complete, all the distances between points will be remeasured.

“You don’t want to spend in the neighborhood of $12 million and not have it work,” Yocum says.

Cox has proceeded despite the pending franchise agreement, Yocum says.

“There’s no incentive for us to do anything but go as fast as we can go. [Cable modem] is vital to our business.”

When the Fayetteville upgrade is complete, he adds, “it will be the most technologically advanced cable system in the state of Arkansas.”

Because cable modem’s availability is still limited, Cox has only advertised it on a limited basis in Siloam Springs and not at all in other cities, Yocum says. “We’re making it available day by day in new areas.”

Yocum says he uses cable modem at his own home and now can’t imagine using anything slower.

“It makes using the Internet a pleasure.”

A learning experience

Of course, not all potential customers are served by Southwestern Bell or Cox Communications, and that opens the door to other providers.

Prairie Grove Telephone Co., a locally owned utility, offers its customers Internet service.

“We’ve had Internet service since November 1998,” says Rick Reed, vice president of operations for the company. Reed says Prairie Grove Telephone has about 700 Internet customers. In December, the company began offering 128-kilobit DSL service for about $56 a month.

“128k doesn’t sound all that fast but, compared to 33k [service], it may be the best that you can get at home on a regular dialup modem,” Reed says.

Reed says the company ventured into the Internet access business because its managers knew that’s what customers wanted — and because they know cable service will eventually be available in Prairie Grove, too.

“As they start using the Internet and [get] more proficient at using the Internet, the next thing [customers] want is more speed. It’s just a logical evolution,” he says. “DSL is the telephone company’s answer to cable. … We’re aware that, in a couple of years, [Cox Communications] may be offering cable modem service in Prairie Grove.

Eventually, Prairie Grove Telephone may offer still faster Internet access, Reed says.

“Internet is something that, quite frankly, there’s not much money in it for a company like us,” he says. “But we realize that it’s the way of the future, so we jumped into it to learn the business and to provide a local number for our customers to access the Internet. That’s, quite frankly, what we’re doing: Learning the business.”

Reed says Prairie Grove Telephone has installed about 200 miles of fiber-optic cable in its service area. “We’re trying to get fiber within three miles of everyone’s house,” he says.