cable modem

Definition

High speed (2 megabits per second or higher) modem used with a computer to access internet over cable-TV lines instead of phone lines. Cable modems provide permanent (no dial-up) connection on a rental basis but, because they convert the cable TV system into a huge local area network (LAN), every user has to share the available bandwidth with all other users data transfer rate falls as the number of users grows. Since everyone on a LAN can 'see' everybody else's hard disk, every user of cable modem has to disallow 'sharing' on his or her computer.