How Cable Modems Work

For millions of people, television brings news, entertainment and

educational programs into their homes. Many people get their TV
signal from cable television (CATV) because cable TV provides a
clearer picture and more channels. See How Cable TV Works for
details.

Many people who have cable TV can now get a high-speed

connection to the Internet from their cable provider. Cable modems
compete with technologies like asymmetrical digital subscriber lines
(ADSL). If you have ever wondered what the differences between
DSL and cable modems are, or if you have ever wondered how a
computer network can share a cable with dozens of television
channels, then read on. In this article, we'll look at how a cable
modem works and see how 100 cable television channels and any
Web site out there can flow over a single coaxial cable into your
home.
Photo courtesy Motorola, Inc.

Motorola SB5100E SURFboard

Extra Space Cable Modem

You might think that a television channel would take up quite a bit of electrical "space," or bandwidth, on
a cable. In reality, each television signal is given a 6-megahertz (MHz, millions of cycles per second)
channel on the cable. The coaxial cable used to carry cable television can carry hundreds of megahertz of
signals -- all the channels you could want to watch and more. (For more information, see How Television
Works.)

In a cable TV system, signals from the various channels are each given a 6-MHz slice of the cable's
available bandwidth and then sent down the cable to your house. In some systems, coaxial cable is the
only medium used for distributing signals. In other systems, fiber-optic cable goes from the cable
company to different neighborhoods or areas. Then the fiber is terminated and the signals move onto
coaxial cable for distribution to individual houses.

When a cable company offers Internet access over the cable, Internet information can use the same cables
because the cable modem system puts downstream data -- data sent from the Internet to an individual
computer -- into a 6-MHz channel. On the cable, the data looks just like a TV channel. So Internet
downstream data takes up the same amount of cable space as any single channel of programming.
Upstream data -- information sent from an individual back to the Internet -- requires even less of the
cable's bandwidth, just 2 MHz, since the assumption is that most people download far more information
than they upload.

Putting both upstream and downstream data on the cable television system requires two types of
equipment: a cable modem on the customer end and a cable modem termination system (CMTS) at the
cable provider's end. Between these two types of equipment, all the computer
networking, security and management of Internet access over cable television is put into place.
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Inside the Cable Modem
Cable modems can be either internal or external to the computer. In some cases, the cable modem can be
part of a set-top cable box, requiring that only a keyboard and mouse be added for Internet access. In fact,
if your cable system has upgraded to digital cable, the new set-top box the cable company provides will be
capable of connecting to the Internet, whether or not you receive Internet access through your CATV
connection. Regardless of their outward appearance, all cable modems contain certain key components:

 A tuner
 A demodulator
 A modulator
 A media access control (MAC) device
 A microprocessor

Tuner
The tuner connects to the cable outlet, sometimes with the addition of a splitter that separates the
Internet data channel from normal CATV programming. Since the Internet data comes through an
otherwise unused cable channel, the tuner simply receives the modulated digital signal and passes it to
the demodulator.

In some cases, the tuner will contain a diplexer, which allows the tuner to make use of one set of
frequencies (generally between 42 and 850 MHz) for downstream traffic, and another set of frequencies
(between 5 and 42 MHz) for the upstream data. Other systems, most often those with more limited capacity
for channels, will use the cable modem tuner for downstream data and a dial-up telephone modem for
upstream traffic. In either case, after the tuner receives a signal, it is passed to the demodulator.

Demodulator
The most common demodulators have four functions. A quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM)
demodulator takes a radio-frequency signal that has had information encoded in it by varying both the
amplitude and phase of the wave, and turns it into a simple signal that can be processed by the analog-to-
digital (A/D) converter. The A/D converter takes the signal, which varies in voltage, and turns it into a
series of digital 1s and 0s. An error correction module then checks the received information against a
known standard, so that problems in transmission can be found and fixed.
In most cases, the network frames, or groups of data, are in MPEG format, so an MPEG
synchronizer is used to make sure the data groups stay in line and in order.

Modulator
In cable modems that use the cable system for upstream traffic, a modulator is used to convert the digital
computer network data into radio-frequency signals for transmission. This component is sometimes called
a burst modulator, because of the irregular nature of most traffic between a

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user and the Internet, and consists of three parts:

 A section to insert information used for error correction on the receiving end
 A QAM modulator
 A digital-to-analog (D/A) converter

Media Access Control (MAC)

The MAC sits between the upstream and downstream portions of the cable modem, and acts as the
interface between the hardware and software portions of the various network protocols. All computer
network devices have MACs, but in the case of a cable modem the tasks are more complex than those of a
normal network interface card. For this reason, in most cases, some of the MAC functions will be
assigned to a central processing unit (CPU) -- either the CPU in the cable modem or the CPU of the user's
system.

Microprocessor
The microprocessor's job depends somewhat on whether the cable modem is designed to be part of a larger
computer system or to provide Internet access with no additional computer support. In situations calling for
an attached computer, the internal microprocessor still picks up much of the MAC function from the
dedicated MAC module. In systems where the cable modem is the sole unit required for Internet access, the
microprocessor picks up MAC slack and much more. In either case, Motorola's PowerPC processor is one
of the common choices for system designers.

Cable Modem Termination System

At the cable provider's head-end, the CMTS provides many of the same functions provided by the DSLAM
in a DSL system. The CMTS takes the traffic coming in from a group of customers on a single channel and
routes it to an Internet service provider (ISP) for connection to the Internet. At the head-end, the cable
providers will have, or lease space for a third-party ISP to have, servers for accounting and logging,
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) for assigning and administering the IP addresses of all the
cable system's users, and control servers for a protocol called CableLabs Certified Cable Modems --
formerly Data Over Cable Service Interface Specifications (DOCSIS), the major standard used by U.S.
cable systems in providing Internet access to users.

The downstream information flows to all connected users, just like in an Ethernet network -- it's up to the
individual network connection to decide whether a particular block of data is intended for it or not. On the
upstream side, information is sent from the user to the CMTS -- other users don't

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 milliseconds, in which users can transmit one "burst" at a time to the Internet. The division by time works
well for the very short commands, queries and addresses that form the bulk of most users' traffic back to the
Internet.

A CMTS will enable as many as 1,000 users to connect to the Internet through a single 6-MHz channel.
Since a single channel is capable of 30 to 40 megabits per second (Mbps) of total throughput, this means
that users may see far better performance than is available with standard dial-up modems. The single
channel aspect, though, can also lead to one of the issues some users experience with cable modems.

If you are one of the first users to connect to the Internet through a particular cable channel, then you may
have nearly the entire bandwidth of the channel available for your use. As new users, especially heavy-
access users, are connected to the channel, you will have to share that bandwidth, and may see your
performance degrade as a result. It is possible that, in times of heavy usage with many connected users,
performance will be far below the theoretical maximums. The good news is that this particular
performance issue can be resolved by the cable company adding a new channel and splitting the base of
users.

Another benefit of the cable modem for Internet access is that, unlike ADSL, its performance doesn't
depend on distance from the central cable office. A digital CATV system is designed to provide digital
signals at a particular quality to customer households. On the upstream side, the burst modulator in cable
modems is programmed with the distance from the head-end, and provides the proper signal strength for
accurate transmission.

DSL MODEM

EASY INTERNET INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS :

CONNECT DSL MODEM TO TELEPHONE JACK-

• Make sure that the telephone cable is connected into the back of your DSL modem (In the Line Port) and
also connected to a telephone jack in the wall.
• You may then plug a telephone into the port marked Phone if you like. When you pick up your telephone
you should then have a dial tone, if your jack is an active line.

CONNECT DSL MODEM TO PC-

• Connect the DSL Modem to PC with a Network Card (NIC/Ethernet Card). If you do not have a Network
Card you should takeyour computer to a computer store and have one installed.
• USB Connections do not work well with DSL Service so you should not use that type of a connection (Do
not have anything plugged into the Port marked USB).
• To connect the NIC/Ethernet Card to the PC, plug the Ethernet cord into the back of the DSL modem (in
the LAN Port) and then into the back of the PC (to your NIC/Ethernet Card).

NETWORK SETTINGS ON THE PC & REGISTRATION-

• Go to control panel, making sure you are in the Classic View, and double click on Network Connections.
Find LAN or High-Speed Internet – right click on this ICON and go to properties, and highlight Internet
Protocol (TCP/IP) and then click
on properties.
o On the General tab set your Computer up to Obtain an IP address automatically
o Also set your Computer to obtain a DNS address automatically too.
• Next, go back to your desktop and double click on the Internet Explorer to get online. Once you get online
you will be asked to register your Computer.
o You log in with your user name and password.

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o After you get a successful registration, you will need to shut down your Computer and turn off. Unplug
your Router
from the power (if you have one), and then unplug DSL Modem from the power.
o Leave unplugged for at least 10 seconds, and then bring everything up in reverse order (DSL Modem,
Router, and then your PC).

SETUP EMAIL AND OTHER INTERNET SETTINGS-

• Go to control panel, making sure you are in the Classic View, and double click on Internet Options – and
connections tab.
o In Dialup and Virtual Private Network Settings window - highlight any items in this window (one at a
time) and clickon remove.
o Below this window make sure your computer is set to never dial a connection.
o Next click on LAN Settings – and make sure nothing is checked on the next screen.
o Make sure your email program (Outlook, Outlook Express, Netscape, etc) is set to connect via a local area
network
(LAN) if you had this set up to connect to a dialup connection before.
1 Most often you will set up your mail through tools, and accounts or email accounts in Outlook or
something similar to that in another mail program.
2 If you are setting up a new account you want to add account. When setting up a new account you should
knowthat your incoming (POP3) and outgoing (SMTP) mail server name should both be
“mail.airstreamcomm.net”
3 Use the same user name and password that you used to register with on the internet.