help clear up a stoopid argument
 

this is stupid, i know, but i need your help. my cousin and i have been having a running argument for a while now and we need outside parties to clear this up.

ok here goes. i have cable television and cable internet. my cousin believes that all cable is the same. he's convinced i can hook my modem up to any cable connection in the house and get online.

i disagree. i say that the cable guy wouldn't have wasted his time running a new line to the house to install internet if he didn't have to. i also pointed out that they can turn either one off anytime they want without affecting the other. i've also presented alot of other arguments but he's convinced he's right.

i can't solve the argument because my only TV is a huge console and my net connnection is upstairs and i don't want to chance ruining my rented modem by plugging it into TV cable.

so who's right?

It depends how they set it up. Either one of you could be right.

Since the data conection operates on a different frequency than your RF channels, they could easily splice the data line into your existing cable structure. If that's the more likely case, you could plug your cable modem into any outlet in the house, or a TV into the place your modem is right now for that matter.

The only way that wouldn't work is if the data guy ran a single cable from the junction box outside to your standalone data jack by your computer. I can't think why that would be the configuration, but it's possible.

Well, the single cable coming into your house has the capability of carrying many signals of variuos frequencies.
That means the electronic equipment on that cable can understand and interpret signals on the frequency they are tuned to.

As far as the cable being there, well, the waves are out there for anything, if you have the right equipment to understand and interpret such.

XM is out there, but my Alpine wants a reciever.

She wants this, I want that, the reciever is the key. Otherwise I don't know what the hell she wants even though the signal was recieved, I need help intertrpreting the signal.

Sorry to say it, but most likely your friend is right ;) At least with "Digital Cable" I believe. Some older cable modems actually require you dial up (for the upload speed) and on those, I believe its "line-specific"

great! i'm glad to hear i was wrong because i have a two story house and i'd like to be able to move the computer around.

It's called MAC address. "media access control address".

I bought my cable modem off ebay years ago. Motorola and Cox had to verify the MAC. Motorola said it was to verify that my modem was not in a lot of stolen numbers.

Uhh, that frequency thing still matters.

The reason the Tech guy runs a new line into your house usually is so that there is minimal splitting of the line from the source to your cable modem. The more splitters you have, the lower the quality of the signal, and this can create problems with your connection. If you are familiar with your house and how the other cable outlets are run, check it out. See how many times the cables are split before they reach their final destination. New houses are generally okay with this because TV cable is a standard and is usually run straight from the source to each individual outlet. Older houses are usually patchworked together, with a number of splitters to get to different areas. Just keep that in mind as you figure out where you want to move the computer to.

thanks devnull i hadn't considered that.

sorta off topic but does anyone know of a site that will test my actual connection speed so i can see if the other cable outlets are any slower?

Ok here is how cable internet works....yes you can split it almost as many times as you want....but when the cable company splits it for cable internet or tv they hook up a filter 75hz i believe inline with the main tv line....that way the cable internet signal doesn't leak into the tv side and cause interference

i can move my cable modem to anywhere in the house and get online, my main line here in the living room comes in, split with one going to the tv, the other to my modem

Two and a half years after we moved to this house, the cable company had to install a signal amplifier inside the house to boost the signal. When originally installed, the installers were concerned with signal levels and ran a higher end cable just for digital cable & internet, the other TVs that got the analog feed were normal cable. After connecting more PCs and TVs the signal eventually dropped below acceptable thresholds, first apparent on digital cable, then eventually all TVs. Cable internet did not seem to be as adversly affected by this. The amplifier cost was $40.

depends which ISP,

http://bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/


Mr Mephisto

the cable person put a new line in because the outlet where you planned on hooking it up would have given you no signal or too weak a signal to be worth it. this happens a lot in older houses, and depends on how the house was wired. the more times the signal went through a splitter of any kind, the signal is degraded. had the guy hooked it up to the whole house, you'd get it everywhere, but for you only your one cable will work. all of it is carried on different frequencies, so they can all coexist.

and they put a splitter (which isn't actually a "splitter", it separates the frequency range so you get ONLY the cable internet frequencies on one feed and ONLY the regular cable frequencies on the other) before the cable modem to filter out the noise from the regular cable, not to keep the computer cable from interfering with the regular cable. that's why they only place in on front of the cable modem, not in front of every TV in your house.