Networking HardwareDefinitions
A Home Gateway is a networking device that connects ALL home and/or small office communication to the outside world. The media used can be one of cable television network, digital-subscriber-line(DSL), or wireless.
A Cable Modem is a networking device that allows high speed information access(e.g. high-speed Internet access) via existing cable television network.
The maximum downstream speed of a cable modem is 27 Mbps. 10 Mbps can be achieved in the upstream direction. As the cable network is a shared medium with many subscribers connected to the same channel simultaneously, a more realistic speed estimate would be upto 10 Mhz downstream and 2.5 Mhz upstream.
There are some security issues which are to be considered while using cable modems because the cable television network is shared media, traffic to and from your computer shares the same wire with traffic from other cable modem subscribers on the network. Data security is handled by the built-in cable modem encryption . No private data should be seen by any other cable subscribers.
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