[WEB4LIB] Cable Internet for library services

[sean dreilinger]

hi karen & fellow info pros:

"Karen G. Schneider" wrote:
> For an upcoming column for American Libraries, I'd like to hear from
> libraries that are using cable Internet for all or some of their Internet
> services, including catalog and other tech services as well as the Web.
> How long have you been connected?

from 1996->last month, i worked with an information consultancy (not
precisely a library, but a business based on librarians' expertise and
internet IR). when we moved in to a beautiful new office
  http://durak.org/sean/icg-office/
in may, 1997, we became the second business customers of time/warner's
road runner cable internet service in san diego, california.

> How well is it working out?  

it usually operates as quickly as promised. for the first year it was
less reliable than dialup modem internet access, and not even comparable
to a leased line.

> Why use cable?  

very fast for downstream activity, such as viewing web pages or
downloading large software objects.

unmetered, all the bytes you can pull down for one low monthly fee. a
single cable modem's downstream can easily serve the web-browsing
activity of 15+ desktop users.

> Why NOT use cable?  

very slow upstream activity - if the usage policy permits it, you might
succeed in operating outbound terminal (telnet/ssh) sessions and a mail
server for your library, but serving a web page upstream off a cable
modem would be awkward if you have any traffic to your web site.

reliability - its respectably reliable here in san diego for about 8
months, but the initial months were another story - many random outages.
the cable company did not seem to regard the internet service as a
separate, business critical information lifeline, but rather as just
another premium tv channel, and who cares if those are on the blink
before people get home from work, right?

i once walked into the office for an important customer demonstration
and found all the cable modems dead: turns out the cable company had
misplaced our check - and opted to shut down the cable to our office 
before researching or resolving their problem. liken that to the
electric company shutting down the juice on a house where the occupant
lives in an iron lung - not funny, not the same as shutting off
someone's monday night football. you need a contingency plan for a lot
of pissed off library customers if your cable company pulls a similar
move on you!

platform - our cable company only supports microsoft windows and sorta
macintosh - if your library operates a unix server you're on your own,
or worse, may be in violation of their Acceptable Use Policy.

policy - we paid a somewhat higher fee to be a 'business' customer, but
the cable internet service doesn't really have a usage policy in-place,
not yet. this sometimes leads to epic hassles. since the cableco mail
service is not terribly quick (delays of hours or days for email
messages) we operate our own mail server. one week the cable company
decided to block all email traffic to customer cablemodems, without
warning or explanation. ouch. they were well-intentioned (some home
users with incorrectly configured machines were being used to relay spam
email) but there is no policy in place to protect the users from the
cable company committing other acts of 'port censorship'.

Dynamic IP addressing - used by our cable ISP means that most machines
are subject to a different IP address from time to time. this is fine
for desktop computers that surf the web, but an unreasonable hassle when
you have services that need to limit access by IP address or are trying
to operate an information service at a fixed IP address. a workaround
for your internal lan is ip masquerading.

customer support - there is a national helpdesk for 'internet problems'
with operators who can tell you how to turn your computer and cable
modem on and off - unfortunately they are of little assistance with
local line conditions, so many outages take an unnecessary round of
phone calls before you can reach your own local cable service and report
a local problem. most advanced 'support' is user-to-user via the Usenet,
in fact, dejanews (http://www.dejanews.com/) indexes two newsgroups you
might want to search for additional opinions for your article:
sdnet.cablemodems and roadrunner.help

> What else would you like to share with the library community
> about using cable Internet for all or part of your Internet services?

well, if i have not scared you out of it - and your library has
net-literate system librarians - i would go for it. rather than fill the
library with cable modems on each desk, i would suggest an internal LAN,
using a non-routable ip address for each user desktop, and one server
with a cable modem that ip masquerades for the entire library LAN. if
you have a bigger budget you can make this somewhat redundant, otherwise
one cable modem should do the trick.

> working title is "When She Is Good, She Is Very, Very Good," to give you a

i like that! hope you will Cc: your article!

> If you respond to this request for information, include your name, title,

       name: sean dreilinger
affiliation: savvysearch limited (http://www.savvysearch.com/)
additional $.02 on request. good luck with your article!

--
                          sean dreilinger, mlis
                          mailto:sean at durak.org
                          http://durak.org/sean