The high-speed Internet access market has been growing in leaps and bounds over recent months, but it's still hard to discern which technology will eventually dominate.

Currently cable modems are one of the dominant players, especially in the Canadian market. Patti Reali, senior industry analyst with San Jose, Calif.-based Dataquest Inc., predicts the worldwide cable modem shipment figures for last year will top three million units.

"We're on par for that particular number, which is a nice increase from last year, when approximately 900,000 were shipped," she says, although she's still waiting for the final fourth-quarter results to come in.

Reali forecasts a quicker acceptance of the technology here than in the United States. "The cable operators in Canada have been way ahead of their U.S. counterparts in terms of putting their cable television infrastructure into place to enable cable data services over two-way communication systems," she said. "So, fundamentally, the Canadians are much better prepared."

In fact, Reali says most of the Canadian cable providers have 75 to 90 per cent of their coverage area upgraded to the point where direct broadband Internet access is possible, so they can market it to all of their cable TV customer base. In the U.S., on the other hand, companies like AT&T Broadband and Internet Services were lucky if they ended last year with 50 per cent of their network upgraded to two-way.

In the future, Reali sees deep market penetration by broadband services. "We're thinking that by the end of 2004, going into 2005, in excess of 50 per cent of all households will be connected to a broadband pipe, most likely a cable pipe," she says.

Other high-speed access options are available, the most popular thus far being DSL, but, as Reali points out, cable is still the major player. "DSL still has to get over a few humps, such as standardization of equipment." she says.

But cable connections aren't without their flaws. Mike Paxton, an industry analyst with Cahners In-Stat Group in San Jose, Calif., explains: "Security is a problem for cable modem users because users share bandwidth on a single cable. Particularly since your cable modem is always attached to the network, it's always on. That permits problems that other modems don't (have)."

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