Residential Broadband: An Insider's Guide to the Battle for the Last Mile

Everyone wants a faster Internet connection at home, and cable modems, ISDN lines, and other speedy links have already begun to infiltrate home offices. But this is just the beginning, as Kim Maxwell explains in Residential Broadband. Lots of new technologies will fight to provide "last mile" service into residences in the near future. As in any battle, there will be winners, losers, and bit players here. Maxwell gives you a line on what will work and why.

Residential Broadband first provides some historical context, explaining how Western Union provided transcontinental telegraph service--and made a profit doing it--in the 19th century. Then, the author details how a standard telephone line into a home works--fascinating reading for anyone who's always taken such technology for granted. From there, Maxwell makes the leap into data- communications technologies, including standard modems (which Maxwell helped invent), ISDN lines, various Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) schemes, and cable modems. The author shuns wireless residential broadband technologies, saying that adequate bandwidth can be had only through satellites, which are too expensive.

Rather than treat his topic in a dry, technology-centered way, Maxwell spends a lot of time explaining the research he's compiled on the applications--research that will spur deployment of high-speed network connections to residences. The ultimate driver of communications technologies is making money, he writes. Electronic commerce will be a big player here, as will videoconferencing and (eventually) entertainment technologies, such as video on demand. --David Wall