Hathway Cable Internet

Hathway Cable and Datacom
Pvt Ltd, a Category A ISP, has launched Internet services under
the brand name Hathway Cable Internet in Mumbai. The services
are being provided through its cable TV network, and subscribers
log into this service using a computer and a cable modem.
Presently, this service is available only in the Nariman Point
area. However, the service’s coverage area is to spread
rapidly on a neighbourhood-to-neighbourhood basis, with Colaba
expected to be linked by March, Pedder Road by April, Worli and
Bandra by May, so on and so forth.

Internet access through
cable modem, a technology that Hathway has adopted, uses Cable
TV co-ax cables to carry Internet traffic in the local mile
instead of using the traditional telephone lines. To access the
Internet through this technology, a subscriber requires a cable
modem, which costs approximately Rs 15,000 currently, and a Rs
1,000-odd Ethernet Network Interface Card (NIC), in addition to
a computer. What is attractive about this technology is that it
enables Internet traffic to flow at much faster speeds than
normal telephone dial-up access, and in some cases comes as
cheap as the corresponding dial-up access. The reason is that
this allows the subscriber to not use a switched telephone line,
hence not having to pay for one. There lies the other advantage.
Since, the cable TV network is a shared one, not switched as a
telephone network, the subscriber is always connected to it.
There is no issue of attempting to get connected to the
Internet, as one is always connected. As the Internet traffic
occupies just one channel of the network, the rest of the
television signal also reaches your TV through a splitter on the
same co-ax cable, installed at the customer’s premises.

Hathway is providing its
services to both the corporate customer as well as homes. The
access packages is barely higher than the tariffs of existing
dial-up access providers. But Hathway claims to be providing
three speeds of access; 128 Kbps, 256 Kbps, and 512 Kbps. This
package is distinguished mainly by the amount of data downloaded
rather than the hours used to surf. The gold packages allows a
corporate to download as much data as it likes, while the silver
packages entitles the home users to download upto 2 GB per
month. At Rs 15,000 as quoted by the company, the cost of cable
modem might come as a burden, compared to the normal computer
modem, but subscribers of gold packages are being offered free
usage of it till the subscription ends. Meanwhile, the home user
can buy the modem in installments. A one-time installation
charge of Rs 1,000 stands for both packages.

Inspite of the great
promise, a bottleneck however remains. Hathway has not yet built
an international gateway of its own. Even though the local mile
might be giving a great bandwidth throughput, it does not mean
anything if there is a serious traffic backlog at the
international gateway provider’s end. Probably with time this
bottleneck will also come undone, as Hathway either sets up its
own international gateway or takes connectivity from
better-equipped gateway service providers than the current ones.