Welcome to My Cable Guide

Internet access via Cable TV is hot.

Internet access via cable TV is on the front burner. Cable coax supplies a big pipe for fast WEB access. The list below includes 1-way and 2-way cable modems as well as telephone ADSL and ISDN links. I'm particularly intrigued by Intercast's technique of broadcasting HTML on the Vertical Blanking Interval (NBC started national testing on Feb 28th) and the Network Computer. Two-way cable modems may get standardized with the help of CableLabs late this year while DAVIC may create affordable Megabit/s access over phone wires.

Background and News

Philo T. Farnsworth (The Boy Who Invented the Future)

How Cable TV Works (Today's distribution architecture)

Hybrid Fiber/Coax (The Continental approach)

Ziff-Davis Review of High-Bandwidth Access (Excellent technology summary)

Webcasting (A review from Technology Magazine)

The History of HDTV (From Dale Crip's HDTV Newsletter)

Video On Demand overview (A comparison of VOD infrastructure costs)

Internet Over Cable (A comprehensive primer from Videotron)

Cable Modem FAQ (Nice overview from Cox)

CableLab's Modem Page (The Official Center of the Cable Universe)

CableLab's Hot Links (From their Cable Modem site)

Cable World (The Cable Industry's News Daily)

Broadband Bob's CyberLab (Broadband Bob probably has the most comprehensive resource on the net)

Gingold's Cable Modem Page (Well organized with links to many modem articles)

Cable Addict's Broadband Lounge (An entertaining joint which mixes music with information)

Cable Online (Up to the minute cable news)

MultiChannel News (A great news journal with lotsa resource links)

Broadband Week (Multi-Channel's CATV News...but where's Gary?)

Cable Datacom News (News with excellent FAQs and info on Modems & Trials)

Pay TV Online (A great resource for just about everything cable)

Network World's WAN Headlines (Lots of good stories and contacts for the Pro)

On Demand:News (Broadband Internet news)

Cable Modems (A slick new entry)

Zaret's High Bandwidth Page (Lots 'O Links to articles)

Web Week (Meckler's publications also include Web Developer and I-Net World)

Cable TV Connect (Another pretty face)

Cable Regulation Digest (News and comment from Multi-Channel News)

Communicating (NW Telecom Newsletter)

DBS On-Line (Excellent resource for small satellite dish receivers)

Telechoice (A leading telecom industry consulting firm)

interNEWS (Top UK-based news from Newsbyte News Network)

Telecom Information Resources (U of Mich directory with over 2,200 links!)

Telephony Buyers Guide (A huge commercial catalog)

The Ultimate TV List (If it's on, it's here)

I-Way or No Way for Cable (Business Week story - 4/8/96)

Videomaker Magazine (Packed with informative and interesting articles)

Video Information Provider Newsletter (All the latest in digital delivery)

New Media Magazine (Informative and entertaining magazine for MM developers)

Java World (Borland's magazine of platform independent programming)

Interactive Age Daily (Today's Net News)

Interactive Week (Telecom news magazine)

Video On Demand using a settop box

Overview of VOD & Multi-Media Services (nCUBE's review of markets and technical requirements)
A-1 Interactive TV Links (24k gold links from the European capital of VOD)
Community Web access via phone (One touchtone phone in, broadcast video out)
2-way Cable Deferred (Video On Demand is on the back burner)
Time/Warner Orlando Trial (The $5000 settop box)
DAVIC (The Digital Audio/Visual Interop Council for VOD)
Microware's OS-9 (Microware's "open" standard for VOD settops)
DAVID on a Macintosh (Microware's 2.0 runs Quicktime)
Quicktime VR (Not streaming video but VR files will play on Netscape)
Microsoft Settop (Microsoft Interactive Television)
Microsoft TV (Broadcast to your LAN)
Recent Microsoft PR (MS is working with TCI and the City of Seattle)
TeleTV's PR (Maybe not tomorrow, but soon...and for the rest...)
nCUBE's Multi-Media Links (nCube is perhaps the leading VOD server)

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One-way data on a computer card or settop box

Web TV (Sony's $300 settop I-Net box)
Magnavox WebTV (Same thing under the Magnavox brand)
Viewcall America (Another $300 Internet settop box)
Review of 1-way settops (Article touches on VBI and other technologies)
Data Broadcasting Corp. (Financial and Sports news via FM subcarrier)
Interactive Systems (InTOUCH was interactive before interactive was cool)
Intercast FAQ (Servers can't feed 1 million simultaneous users. Intercast can.)
Intercast Article (From Hyperstand)
Wavephore (Datacasting in both VBI and active TV lines)
Norpak (Teletext & Videotex pioneers)
Closed Captioning on the Web (Uses line 21 of the VBI)
SAP (Portland broadcasters are clueless, but they own a state-wide analog broadcasting network)
Starsight (How to strip the VBI of free stuff & charge $3-4/mo for a cable guide)
VBI and other technologies (A brief review)
Wink (Is a wink is as good as a node?)
Wave Interactive (VBI data for $5/mo; Com21 partner in PaloAlto test)

Two-way Computer Modems

CableLab's Modem Page (The Official Spec Page)
Cable Modem Press Releases (From CableLabs Page)
Microsoft's Cable '96 (Created for NCTA show & loaded with good stuff)
Viacom's Castro Valley Modem Trial (Excellent guide with FAQs and figures)
Cable Modems at the December Cable Show (From CableWorld Magazine)
CableNet's Clickable Map (Maps of US & World; over 50 modem trial sites)
The Cable Modem Dilema (PC Magazine article overviewing flux in high speed data access)
Cable Modem Speed realities (Think you'll get 27Mbs? Think again.)
Overview of @Home Service (A Netweek article)
Sunnyvale's @Home Service (TCI will charge $30-$50/month for controlled, 2-way access in Sunnyvale)
TCI's Cable Modem rollout in Lansing MI (It costs $45-$70 a month + installation)
Implementing Zenith modems (An early report from the field)
Oracle's Net Appliance (The $500 settop wired with Java)
Guts of the Net Appliance (the Acorn ARM chip set)
AT&T/HP/Intel Modem (This and other modems may get "standardized". Sometime.)
Com21 (An ATM modem for about $500)
LANcity (DEC sponsored, Ethernet compatible)
Intel's Cableport Modem for PCs (27Mbps downstream, 96K upstream)
Motorola's Cable Modem FAQ (The Cable Modem TCI may use in Portland next year)
CableLab's Vendor Index (Modems and other RF equipment)

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Integrating Audio & Video on Home Pages

Plug-In Plaza (A new 1-stop shop for every platform)
Netscape's Plug-In Page (All the latest downloads)
MacWorld's Navigator Plug-In Page (Try this one if you're Mac specific)
Broadband '96 (June mixer for Multi-Media development on Cable)
Media Splash (Animated WEB tool)
GIF Animation (No helper needed, just Netscape 2.0)
Progressive's RealAudio (Streaming Audio with special servers)
Voxware (Streaming Audio on Home Pages)
Active Movie Stream (Microsoft's streaming A/V format for Explorer 3.0)
Quicktime Live (Streaming Audio on Home Pages)
VDO Video (Streaming Video with server software)
Xing Streamworks ("Live" Streaming Video)
OGI's MPEG A/V Player (Oregon Gradute Institute goes to a Blazer game)
Shockwave Movies (Netscape movies. On Demand)
MacroMedia User Journal (An excellent resource by New Media Magazine)
The Network Computer (Larry's paintball is aimed at Bill)
MacWorld WEB tools (A brief review of new stuff for the Mac)
OS/2 Warp TV (IBM's TV in a window)
Java Journals (Yahoo's index of guides and documentation)
Java Applets (Yahoo's sampler of eye candy)
Microsoft's Internet Studio (Decaffinated Java )
FutureWave (Vector animation for the WEB)
VRML (Yahoo) (Platform independent Virtual Reality Modeling Language)
Fat Pipe (Multi-Media developer for Time/Warner)
Excite's A/V Index (A good list of source material)
Internet Multicasting Service (A Mothership of streaming content)
Indeo (Intel's video software now super-compressed with wavelets)
America's Talking (MSNBC's future home)
CNN Interactive (Can 3 million hits a day be wrong?)
CNN Financial News (Brand new and already 1/2 million hits/day)
CNN at Work (High speed LAN feed of Intel's Indeo video)
MS/NBC (News On Demand from NBC & Microsoft)
PointCast (Custom News delivered to your PC)

Two-Way Teleconferencing

Introduction to Videoconferencing (An excellent source of useful information)

Index of Videoconferencing products (A large list of companies and short descriptions)

Intel's PC Communications (Lots going on behind the glass door)

InternetPhone (2-way audio) (Vocaltec's "live" internet telephone software for free world-wide voice)

WebPhone (2-way audio) (Internet Telephone Company's telephone software for the Internet)

OnLive (Realtime 2-way voice with VRML personas)

CU-SeeMe (Cornell's free, 2-way Internet video using standard modems and PC hardware)

White Pine Enhanced CUSeeMe (The commercial CU package with color)

Intel Video Phone (Intel's POTS compatible, CUSeeMe ripoff; special mdm & Pentium please)

PictureTalk (2-way Netscape video)

MBone (2-way audio/video) (2-way voice/video teleconferencing system for high bandwidth Internet connections)

Intel's Proshare 2.0 (new release) (Multi-pt, H.320 voice/video teleconferencing system for ISDN and LANs)

Quicktime Conferencing (Apple's competing H.320 technology for ISDN & LANS)

Telecommuting Guide (PacBell's Helpful Hints for working at home)

Rutger's Voice Input research (The solution to international communications?)

Desktop Video Tutorial (Editing video on a computer-not 2-way teleconferencing, but a good guide for editors)

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Public Access

The Ultimate Access List (Comprehensive list of Access Centers by State)
San Franciso TV Access (SF Community TV Corporation)
Oregon Access Centers (From MCTV's page)
Multnomah Community Television (MCTV's Home on the Net)
Portland Cable Access (PCA's Home on the Net)

Cable Companies & Vendors

Oregon Cable Companies (A list of operators, state-wide)
Paragon Cable (Paragon talks the talk in Portland)
TCI (The cynics best friend and supporter)
TCI 's @Home Architecture (Oops, looks like Oregon Media will be controlled by TCI)
Damn Right Diner (John's idea of Political Correctness)
Time/Warner Cable (Gerry's gold plate special)
Time/Warner (A snapshot for investors)
US West (A snapshot for investors)
US West International (Where phone over cable is implemented)
Roger's Cablesystems (They built and ran the Paragon system)
Roger's WAVE (If you lived here you could be surfing at 10Mb/s by now!)
ADC Telecommunications (Homeworx invented here)
General Instruments (The alpha male of cable suppliers)
Scientific Atlanta (Personally, I think S/A is sexier)
Additional Links to Cable Vendors (From CableLabs)
NCTA (Hangout for Ted Turner & Tom Brockaw)

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ISDN, ADSL, ATM and other stuff for the truly nerdy

Broadband Bob's Cable Modem Page (Modems a bunch with test sites)
Gingold's Cable Modem Page (An excellent and comprehensive index)
Juszkiewicz's VOD Links (The US is behind other countries on VOD)
Dan Kegel's Guide to ISDN (The definitive ISDN page; news and info from a consumer's perspective)
Dan Kegel's ADSL Page (Dan does it again with the definitive ADSL page)
Ziff Davis ISDN Review (Descriptions of most ISDN modems)
ISDN Home Installation (How to Install ISDN networks at home)
Dave Berry's ISDN Rate Protest (No, not THAT Berry, but this one's pretty funny, too)
A user's guide to ISDN (By PacBell - who else)
ISDN from US West (The Denver genius is suing itself)
Telephone Video FAQ (Drew Smith explains it all)
Hybrid Fiber/Coax (Broadband Bob draws a picture)
Bob's Fiber Optic Page (The History of Fiber along with the light (and heavy) movers and shakers)
LAN Scorecard (Quick comparison of LANs by type, speed and standard status)
FDDI meets the MAN (Can phone or cable compete with Teleport's content & expertise? I don't think so.)
2-Way Testbeds (A dated but comprehensive review of VOD et. al.)
Sharp Microelectronics (Links to IrDa, VESA, and other engineering resources)
Telechoice ADSL Page (An excellent page with the latest news and links)
Aware's ADSL (Aware's compression/speed has been praised)
AT&Ts ADSL chips (The Paradyne, Paradigm shift)
ADSL Telechoice Report (ADSL & the USWest/Continental deal + lots more)
ATM (Yahoo) (Automatic Teller Machines get voice & video)
ATM overview (With a nod to ISDN)
ATM Forum (And a trip to Cable's 802.14 Land)
BroadBand Technologies (Supplier of Video On Demand fiber/coax plant)
Cable Data Router (Headend equipment from CableComm)
Cable Headend Equipment (Put the datacast on cable)
Cisco & Terayon (S-CDMA gets a headend)
High Performance Storage System (Feeding 100,000 users? No problem.)
Gigabit LANS (Bits, not bombs, from Larry Livermore)
Sequent Computer (A hot box with a WEB attitude)
nCUBE (Family of parallel servers; teamed on many VOD trials)
The World's biggest server (Intel's Teraflop computer)

Wireless Communications

HDTV Newsletter (Dale Crips Hot and Definitive Newsletter)

HDTV 101 (From the HDTV Newsletter)

Wireless Cable (An excellent review of the Cable Killer)

CellularVision (Ray's baby grows up)

LMCS in Canada (Ted Roger's Worst Nightmare)

AT&T Wireless (They bought Macaw/Cellular One)

PCS phones

GSM standard phones

Phones on Cable (A quick analysis of TCI/Sprint by the Yankee Group)

TCI's PCS phones (Cheap PCS phones operated by cable companies may undercut twisted pair)

Roger's PCS phones (They built the Paragon system)

Green Eggs Report (URLs found in std.wireless Newsgroup)

PCS licenses for PDX (TCI/Sprint and tiny Western are incompatible; would T/W buy Western?)

Wireless Cable (Get dozens of channels on this spectrum above UHF)

More Wireless Cable (Cable World article)

Satellite '96 (A Global Snapshot)

Geosynch Telecom Satellites (Specs from the definitive Satellite Encyclopedia)

Mobile Satellite Directory (A very Comprehensive Library)

Hughes Direct TV (Sells like hot cakes, looks like pizza pan)

Satellite Phones (Iridium, Teledesic, & others. One of the best resources on The Net)

Satellite Phone Comparison Chart (Tor's tabular Guide)

Satellite Telecommunications (Yahoo Index)

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Opinions

Four Myths about Telco Video (Executive summary: They're not sure what they're doing, either)
Where is the Info Highway Headed (Mitch Kapor, EFF Guru, draws a map)
Turn On, Log In, Drop Out (Virtual MUD fight)
George Gilder (Luv 'em or hate 'em, the guy knows how to write!)
Death From Above (John Barlow on DBS)
EFF's Links to Network Infrastructure (Rants and Links from Electronic Freedom Foundation)
NIST Report on Interoperability (A white paper)
Universal Service and the Information Superhighway (A brief review of issues & policies)
Cable Interviews - On Demand (Sound files encoded via Truespeech)
Sprint's History of the World (A telephone perspective)
US West Strategy (From CEO's speech a few months ago)
OR Telecom Report to Gov (A State-wide initiative)

Policies

Sunnyvale's Telecom Policy (Good review of issues)
Intel's Phoenix Impact (How Intel helped develop the city's telecom infrastructure)
NEC grants (Computers & Telcommunications company which helped OMSI)
Seattle's TCI Cable Franchise (Seattle's agreement with TCI)
Kitzhaber's Speech on OR Economic Development (Telecom is mentioned)

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State Organizations

Association of Telecommunications Officers (Affiliated with the National League of Cities)
Oregon Independent Telephone Association (Trade Assoc for smaller local exchanges in Oregon)
Oregon Telcom (OrTel) (Non-profit Assoc for internet links and more)
Oregon Ed Net (A short discription of the Distance Learning Project)
Oregon Telecommunications Forum (The grey beards of Telecom)
OR Telecom Meeting (The 3/12/96 meeting chaired by Gov. Kitzhaber)
NERO Net (Oregon's ATM trial; Network for Engineering & Research in Oregon)
Map of NERO Net (State-wide Links to University Hubs, color coded by speed)
Telecom Demonstrations (Bone up on MBONE)
Oregon's Telephone Area Code Map (Okay, here's a practical resource in this sea of Blue Sky)

Other Organizations

Cable Trade Shows (A comprehensive yearly summary)
Broadcast Organizations (Eddie's Club and Broadcast Engineers)
Pacific Telecommunications Council (Rich Resource site for the Pacific Rim)
Newspaper Assoc of America (The NAA's Interactive web page )
Newspaper Videotex trials (Mindy has been there and done that)
Cable Labs (Cable's technical strong arm)
IEEE 802.14 Committee (The people who try to make it work)
Other Cable Resources (From Cablelab's Pages)
Oregon School for the Deaf (Salem-based )
Deaf Resources (BTW, the OR School for the Deaf link doesn't work)
Gallaudet University (4-yr liberal arts for deaf, supplied CBS Teletext content)
Oregon School for the Blind (A list of US schools for the visually impaired)
Resources for the Blind (OSU Research Projects)

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The FCC (THE US telecommunications authority. This year.)

CPSR Telecom Page (The Bill and a few opinions)

The US Telecommunications Bill (The Bill and a few opinions)

The Telecom Bill (The Best Legislation Money Can Buy)

Voter's Telecomm Watch (Legistlation as it relates to civil liberties)

Oregon Telecommunications Legislation (An index from OR Info Management Dept.)

Virtual Library: National Information Infrastructure (The Internet in all its forms)

NTIA (National Telecommunications & Info Admin & links)

Online World Handbook (Narrative with lots 'o links on current/future WEB directions)

Virtual Library's Index to Telecommunications (A big, sprawling index)

Yahoo's Index to Telecommunications (A quick, fast index)

Yahoo's Index to Cable Networks (A&E to Wingspan)

Alta Vista Search (My new favorite search engine)

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Meadowsfix's Cable Links

Welcome to My Cable Guide