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.