Tailfin

Why the 3Com HomeConnect modem?

Thanks for letting me explain why I think this is a good choice in cable modems. I am assuming that you have decided to buy your cable modem, not rent or lease it.

This modem was developed by 3Com in 1999/2000 at a time where I was working for 3Com as a cable modem hardware design engineer. For that reason, I had a pretty good feel for the development and engineering quality. Personally I had only few tasks on this particular modem (codenamed Tailfin for obvious reasons), as I was working other projects at the time.

The enclosure design is done by the world known industrial design company Ideo, Inc (headquartered in Palo Alto, CA). Ideo is known among other things for the Palm V design. For this modem, Ideo selected a special plastic material that diffuses the lights from the LED's in a very cool way. The photo does not show just how cool that effect is, you have to see it.

Internally the modem is based on a Broadcom chipset that supports DOCSIS 1.1 in hardware. The software upgrade from DOCSIS 1.0 to DOCSIS 1.1 should happen automatically, once the cable modem operator decides it is time to shift up. 

The tuner is improved for vibration sensitivity and all of the RF circuitry outperforms the requirements by a comfortable margin. Based on following the hardware design very closely, I can fully recommend it. 

A cable modem contains a great deal of software also, which in this case was a total rewrite based on the 3Com CMX external cable modem (a rock solid, DOCSIS 1.0 only modem - probably the fastest modem ever made).

The interface to the PC is either USB or Ethernet, where I would recommend you go for the Ethernet connection if you ever want to set up a home network. The modem comes with both connectors, so you are not locked in.

Discontinued

You should also know that this modem has been discontinued as 3Com decided to leave the consumer cable and DSL modem business in June 2001. This was yet another attempt from 3Com to return to profitability. My comments above are still valid - the modem is still a good choice. 3Com still have about 25 engineers working on sustaining tasks as well as development of the DOCSIS 1.1 software upgrade. So I don't think this modem will become outdated any faster than the competing modems.

How to buy it?

It used to be SKU 61572 at Outpost.com , but it has been discontinued. You may search for it on eBay or maybe www.pricegrabber.com - good luck!

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