Motorola SBG1000, the industry’s first wireless cable modem gateway, integrates a cable modem, router and wireless access point in a single product. It will be used by Mexico’s InterCable Monterrey to launch a “CableLink Wireless” service. InterCable Monterrey plans to make its tiered, high-speed wireless Internet access service available to about 200,000 customer homes, starting in the fall.
The Motorola SBG1000 lets subscribers share — through either a wireless or wired connection — a single, high-speed Internet account between multiple users and computers.
Motorola SBG900 builds upon the success of Motorola’s SBG1000, integrating 54 Mbps, 802.11g and a number of smart features and functions into a single box. The Motorola SBG900 features:
- 802.11g wireless access point
- DOCSIS™ 2.0-compatible cable modem
- 10/100base-T Ethernet and USB ports
- Content filtering and parental controls
- Wireless security, including 64/128-bit WEP encryption
- Network security features, including an advanced firewall
It also offers features that are configurable by network operator through SNMP – or by the user through a simple Web-browser interface.
United States cable operators like Comcast say sharing internet access via Wi-Fi is “stealing”. They send out red squads to shut them down.
Cable operators, still working on a way to bill individual users, have successfully avoided Wi-Fi although home entertainment is clearly moving to Wi-Fi, especially with 802.11g and upcoming QOS standards.
In the case of Rick Tait, a subscriber to Time Warner Cable’s Road Runner ISP, Tait had been running an open wireless gateway by hanging a low-cost wireless hub off of his cable-modem connection and making the service from his ISP available to his neighbors and any one else in the area searching for a wireless Internet connection.
Tait is also a member of NYC Wireless, a Wi-Fi advocacy group that has set up close to 100 Wi-Fi hubs in New York to date, with 50 of them in Manhattan.
Then Tait received a cease-and-desist order from Time Warner’s legal department:
“You should be aware that this is a very serious problem that goes beyond the theft of our services,” stated the letter. “It is not our desire at this time to sue you, and we assume that it is not your desire to allow unknown users to anonymously plan criminal acts through your account. However, your wireless broadcast of the Road Runner service must immediately cease and desist”.
Wireless-Friendly Service Providers include Portland’s Easy Street. They do NOT include cable operaters. Avoid them like the plague.
Cable operators are likely a threat to the broadband economy in the United States. They will shut down competitive “last mile” wireless by hanging Wi-Fi nodes on cable amps - then charge $29.95/month for access.
Long Beach, Calgary, Toronto and New York got “free” city clouds while the getting was good. Soon, Police, Fire and consumers seem likely to pay inflated, preditory prices to cable and phone duopolies. Same as it ever was.
“Competition” is anathema to phone and cable duopolies. The FCC may back them up. Plan on it.
Murdock, Microsoft, Intel and AT&T don’t have the secret sauce. It’s advertising and transactions. That’s Big Media and the NAB. Too bad their as clueless as the RIAA.
Maybe Apple will save the day.
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