The supertanker turns round? [6 September 1998]
At the end of a BBC News Online article about BT Home Highway (which, in my opinion, is hopelessly inadequate; it is metered by time and has a large monthly rental fee, is not much faster than a 56K modem and is based on 20-year-old technology) five significant paragraphs about the Pace box snuck out:
'I think it [BT Home Highway] will struggle because we plan to offer a faster service at a lower price," says Kevin Gooding of Cable and Wireless Communications.
CWC plans to offer Internet access at between 2Mbps and 10Mbps next year, through cable alongside its digital television service.
Unlike the BT's Highway scheme, CWC will not charge users for the amount of time they are online, though the company has not yet announced its monthly charge for cable modem access.
In July a British company, Pace Micro Technology, said it had received an order from CWC to make 100,000 digital cable set-top boxes over 18 months.
CWC said the boxes would incorporate a cable modem.
Not metered by time? That's all that's needed! It could yet be metered by data, but the implication is that it will be available for a flat fee. With that, and the high speeds available, Home Highway being inadequate will be a fact, not an opinion.
It would seem that CWC have indeed made a spectacular turnaround since the era, only a couple of months ago, of the poor old Tonto 2000 ...
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