Cox Communications' cable provides high-speed Internet to Tijuana
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20041226-9999-1b...
By Kathryn Balint
December 26, 2004
Of all of the links between San Diego and Tijuana, one of the most important may be Cox Communications' fiber-optic cable that delivers high-speed
Internet access ? and Padres' games ? south of the border.
For four years, Cox has been operating the only U.S. fiber-optic cable crossing an international boundary.
Less than an inch in diameter, Cox's bundle of 122 fiber-optic lines stretches across the Tijuana River Valley on utility poles before connecting to
lines owned by Cablem?s, a Tijuana cable TV company, just yards north of the border. From there, the lines are fed through a pipeline 15 feet
underground, running under the border and Ensenada Highway before resurfacing in Mexico.
The National Cable & Telecommunications Association knows of no other cable company whose fiber-optics reach across an international border.
"It's unique," said Brian Dietz, spokesman for the trade association.
The cable is so powerful that Cox says just two fibers would be capable of handling all the Internet traffic for Tijuana's 1.5 million residents.
The connection allows Cablem?s to offer Cox's Channel 4, whose programming includes 145 San Diego Padres baseball games each season.
It's popular with customers, said Gisela C?rdenas, supervisor of Cablem?s' Internet business department. "They see the Padres as their team," she
said.
But the biggest boon to the company is the high-speed Internet access that Cablem?s began offering two years ago. Through the transborder cable, Cox
serves as Cablem?s' backbone to the Internet.
High-speed Internet was slower to catch on in Tijuana than in San Diego.
Six years ago, there were few options for a fast connection, said telecommunications expert Alejandro Villalba, manager of Teleserviz, a Tijuana
telecom company.
Companies used costly microwave services to provide data and telephone links to their offices in the United States. Wireless, land-based Internet
access was available, but at $350 a month. It, too, was limited to large businesses.
In 1998, Teleserviz became one of the first companies to offer high-speed Internet via a wireless land network to residences.
Competition has increased with the introduction of Cablem?s' cable-modem service, followed by the launches of a satellite Internet service and the
telephone company's digital subscriber line service, or DSL.
"It's been very competitive," Villalba said.
While there are no definitive numbers on how many Tijuana households have access to the Internet, Villalba estimates it's about one in five. And of
those that do have Internet access, he estimates about one in five have high-speed service.
In its deal with Cox, Cablem?s pays wholesale rates for access to the Internet and Channel 4. Neither has disclosed terms of the deal.
For Cox, the $80,000 project to deliver Channel 4 and high-speed Internet across the border has been about more than making money, said Judith Morgan
Jennings, a company spokeswoman. She said it has furthered Cox's commitment to the Latino market.
"It was the right thing to do," she said.
The arrangement has been such a success that Cablem?s and Cox are planning to lay a second fiber-optic cable early next year to serve as a backup
line.
Because of its deal with Cox, Cablem?s became the third cable company in Mexico to offer high-speed Internet access, C?rdenas said. The company's
Internet service has grown to 10,000 customers. The others are in Mexico City and Guadalajara.
Cablem?s offers eight cable-modem speeds, ranging from 128 kilobits per second (twice the speed of dial-up Internet access) for $19 a month, to 2
megabits per second for $170 a month.
By comparison, Cox's San Diego customers pay about $50 a month for 4-megabit-per-second cable-modem service.
Villalba, the telecommunications expert, said Cablem?s' Internet service is in line with what other companies charge for high-speed Internet access in
Tijuana.
Cox's unusual partnership with Cablem?s, Mexico's second-largest cable TV company, with operations in three dozen cities, began 12 years ago, when
Carlos Alvarex, then manager of the cable company's Tijuana office, met with Steve Gautereaux, Cox's vice president of network management in San
Diego.
The two talked about how they might work together.
At the time, high-speed access to the Internet by cable modem wasn't even a consideration. Instead, the two cable companies were concerned about
atmospheric interference with the over-the-air television signals they were picking up from each other's countries.
For instance, Cox found that weather conditions in August and September sometimes interfered with the signal from Mexico-based XETV-Channel 6, a Fox
affiliate. The station, whose transmitter is on Mount San Antonio in Mexico, has the highest U.S. viewership of any Mexican station, Gautereaux said.
Gautereaux figured Cox could receive more reliable signals if they were delivered by fiber-optics to the cable company. The result would be better
quality video for Cox's customers.
The idea was simple. But implementing it was another matter. It took Cox and Cablem?s seven years to receive the necessary approvals from both
countries to install the transborder cable.
"It was one obstacle after another," Gautereaux said.
On the U.S. side, Cox had to receive permission from six agencies, including the International Boundary and Water Commission's U.S. sector, the U.S.
Fish & Wildlife Service and the U.S. Border Patrol.
But when Cox described its plan to string the fiber on utility poles across the border, it met with objections from the Border Patrol, which was
concerned about the possibility that illegal immigrants could use the line to climb across the border.
When Cox changed its application to say it would dig a "tunnel" to feed the fiber across the border underground, new objections were raised. The use
of the word "tunnel" was interpreted as another potential aide for illegal immigrants.
"We had to go back and describe it as a small tunnel, a boring," Gautereaux said.
The project even required a special permit from then-President Bill Clinton.
By the time the line finally was installed in March 2000, the original idea of using the fiber-optic line to improve the signal quality from
television stations was put on the back burner.
First, Cablem?s customers were given access to Channel 4. They were able to watch their first Padres games in April 2000. Providing high-speed
Internet to Cablem?s customers became the next priority.
Now, Cox is finally working on a deal with XETV for the direct feed from Mexico the cable company initially wanted.
And approvals for the second fiber-optic border crossing are in the works.
Cablem?s has already received all of the permits it needs.
And Cox no longer needs a permit from the U.S. president. But it now has a new agency it must seek permission from: the Department of Homeland
Security.
"The latest we've heard from Homeland Security is that they have to do their own environmental impact report," Gautereaux said. "This is the kind of
thing we ran into last time. We thought we were making progress, and we'd take two steps forward, then one step backward. What we've learned is we
have to persevere."
In Tijuana, students at the Colegio Mentor Mexicano, a school for first through 12th grades, are enjoying the benefits of Cox's and Cablem?s'
perseverance to bring high-speed access to the Net.
Elda Triana, general principal at the school, said the students and teachers would never want to go back to life before their cable Internet
connection.
The school has 72 computer stations, where students learn to use Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel beginning in the first grade. They use the
Internet to research their lessons.
Last week, Natalie Moreno, 11, was among a class of fifth-graders who used the Internet to find maps of Mexico.
"It explains to me things I do not know," Natalie said. "It's a lot of fun."
Cablem?s provides free Internet access to the school in exchange for placing a satellite receiver on the school's roof, C?rdenas said.
Across town, the Crystal Art Gallery, a maquiladora that makes framed art prints, uses the Internet to manage payroll for its 300 employees.
Citlali Camacho, human resources and payroll manager, said Crystal Art Gallery uses Web-based software to process its paychecks. Cablem?s' high-speed
connection has sped up her job, she said.
At the household of 14-year-old Alejandro Garibaldi last week, Cablem?s installed cable-modem service. Alejandro's 22-year-old sister is married to a
U.S. Marine stationed in Japan.
Alejandro said the family wants to use the high-speed Internet to send e-mail and photographs. He said his father ordered Cablem?s Internet service
because it was a better bargain than that offered by the telephone company.
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