Newspaper Articles

This collection of articles was published in the Detroit Legal News from 1995-1997. All were written in the infancy of the modern Internet, before the landscape surrounding Internet legal and business issues began to develop. Access to the Internet largely consisted of dial-up connections on a 14.4 kbs modem or slower. Both the technology and state of the law have evolved considerably since these were first published.

Faster Access in Store for Internet Customers

Originally published September 4, 1996

Perhaps the largest single problem with the Internet as it exists today is transmission speed.

Downloading a Web site, file, or program can be a painfully slow experience with even the fastest telephone modem.

The problem is not the result of content-rich files. Anyone who uses the Internet at work on a high speed connection and then goes home to a standard telephone-based modem can experience the difference.

It's bandwidth.

Bandwidth can be thought of as the pipeline which connects a person to the Internet. Audio, visual, text and other media traversing across the Internet's open computer network is converted to digitized units of information. This information takes up space as it travels through the bandwidth pipeline.

Internet connection and usage speed is primarily a function of bandwidth capacity. The larger the pipeline to the Internet in terms of transmission capacity, the faster the digitized information travels between destinations. If there is enough bandwidth available, even large files can be transmitted quickly.

Digitized information is measured in bits and bytes. A "bit" is the smallest unit of digitized information, an electronic 1 or 0. There are typically eight bits of information in a byte. Bandwidth capacity and transmission speed is gauged in bits per second (bps). File size is generally measured in bytes.

Long programs and files or Web sites that contain sound, video or pictures consume a large number of bytes of information. They take up more space and move slower through the bandwidth pipeline. That's the reason why it takes considerably longer to view or download from a Web site than it does to transmit a text e-mail message.

For example, a single page of text in Word Perfect format consumes about 3,000 bytes (3 kilobytes or Kb) of information. A Web site may run a few to several hundred kilobytes. A typical program, such as Netscape's Navigator 3.0 web browser, takes up about 7,300,000 bytes (7.3 megabytes or Mb) of information.

The speed at which these files of various sizes travel depends on the bandwidth of the user -- how many bits per second can move through the pipeline.

Standard telephone line modem connections are the cheapest and most common mode of access to the Internet. They also provide the least amount of bandwidth. The fastest modems currently in widespread use are 28.8 kbs modems (around $150). Anything slower for Internet access is relatively worthless.

A standard telephone modem-based connection to the Internet too can be a frustrating experience. Want to download the new beta version of Netscape for a trial run? You better bring a book to read while the file is being transferred. The download will take well over 15 minutes on a 28.8 bps modem.

Even downloading graphically oriented Web sites over a standard modem can be time consuming, taking up to several minutes. The problem is compounded by the voluminous number of sites on the Internet, inadequate server capacity and the hit-and-miss nature of viewing information. A significant portion of an Internet session can be spent downloading useless or irrelevant sites.

After telephone modems, the next fastest connection to the Internet is an ISDN line. ISDN stands for integrated services digitized network. An ISDN line provides a connection of about 128 kbs. Although ISDN technology has been around for years, ISDN lines are still not widely available and are quickly being overshadowed by faster and more promising technologies.

T-I lines are dedicated leased lines providing Internet access at around 1.5 Mbps. They art- typically used by corporate users operating in a networked computing environment. The large bandwidth and high transmission speed does not come cheap. T-1 line costs can run into thousands of dollars a month.

A number of technologies are currently being tested to speed up Internet transmissions even further. These technologies offer the potential of high-speed data transmission at a relatively low cost. Among the most promising technologies are fiber optic cable networks, ASDL lines and satellite based data transmissions.

A fiber optic cable connection to the Internet provides download speeds of up to 10 Mbps. This is almost 700 times faster than a typically 28.8 bps modem and a hundred times faster than an ISDN line.

While electronics companies are rushing to introduce PC-TVs, cable television providers are currently investing millions of dollars into Internet access. For example, Continental Cablevision is beginning a test of cable Internet access locally for subscribers in Plymouth, Northville and Canton. Continental's system will connect directly to the user's computer via a special cable modem. The cable will be split between the TV and the computer. The Internet interface will be supported by Netscape's browser and email.

Continental hopes to offer Internet access as an additional premium service for its cable subscribers later this year. Continental's pricing has not been announced but it will likely be competitive with the cost of a second phone line for computer transmissions combined with service provider access fees.

ADSL (asymmetrical digital subscriber line) technology, which uses copper telephone lines, is currently being developed by companies such as Northern Telecom. The ADSL downstream speed will be slower than cable modems, however, upstream transmissions (which are important for electronic commerce) will be considerably higher.

Finally, companies such as the Bill Gates-supported Teledesic Corporation are betting on low-orbiting satellites as the Internet pipeline of the future. Satellite transmission will likely fill the bandwidth gap in rural and remote areas and for those on the go with laptops (as opposed to users in dense urban areas).