Re: cable system

[Carol Simpson <csimpson@TENET.EDU>]

On Sun, 16 Jan 1994, Paula Galland wrote:

> Your statement about using your city cable system for networking
> between schools has certainly captured my interest.  Tell us more!

Our city had enough foresight to require FOUR cables in the original cable
franchise:  one for "basic" cable, one for "expanded" cable, one for
institutional video (we have 16 channels of Instructional television, and
the City and Community college both have some).  The last is called the
institutional data loop.  It connects the school sites, city sites and
community college.  We must use special bridges and routers, but we get 2
megabit speed over the cable.  Of course cable outages, etc. affect us,
but we are up much more than we are down.  And we don't pay a cent. This
is a requirement for the cable company to do business in the city.

Now don't think this is all glory.  We have about maxed this thing out
already.  We are looking at other alternatives to take over some of the
traffic - mostly MAC-based QuickMail.  We run some of it over ISDN
circuits, now, but ISDN is too slow for our CD-ROMs or our library
applications - they "time out" waiting for packet exchanges.

Carol Mann Simpson                   csimpson@tenet.edu
Facilitator - Library Technology          214 882-7450
Mesquite (TX) Independent School District