September 10, 1996
Time Warner's high speed on-line cable service, ROAD RUNNER was introduced today in Akron, Ohio by Excalibur Group, a joint venture of Time Warner Cable and Time Inc. ROAD RUNNER utilizes Motorola's high-speed CyberSURFR cable modems and data communications infrastructure equipment, with Time Warner Cable's upgraded hybrid fiber/coax (HFC) network.
According to Motorola Executive Vice President Robert L. Growney, who participated in the launch event at Akron's Inventure Place, home of the Inventors, Hall of Fame, ROAD RUNNER is a significant milestone in the building of broadband communications networks in the U.S.
"ROAD RUNNER is the first city-wide commercial launch of a high-speed on-line cable service, and it marks the start of a whole new multimedia experience for consumers," said Growney. He pointed out that ROAD RUNNER'S original content and the Internet will be delivered at speeds up to hundreds of times faster than conventional narrowband modem connections.
"Not only is this the answer to the bandwidth bottleneck, it's the fulfillment of the promise of the on-line experience," said Motorola Corporate Vice President James M. Phillips. "Speed changes everything. ROAD RUNNER will change the way consumers think about computers and provide an on-line experience much closer to television. It's edutainment, infotainment and entertainment."
According to Tim Evard, president of Excalibur Group, ROAD RUNNER is an historic "first" in the scope of the service as well as its original content. "Motorola shares our view of the future, and its high-speed CyberSURFR cable modems play a key role in delivering this exciting new on-line experience to consumers," said Evard. "Our selection of Motorola for high-speed cable modem and infrastructure equipment is compatible with the speed and quality that our ROAD RUNNER service will deliver to consumers," he added.
The CyberSURFR cable modem and Cable Router are part of Motorola's CableComm family of products. The CyberSURFR modem connects subscriber personal computers to the HFC system via a standard 1OBase-T 802.3 LAN connection specifically designed for data communications for on-line services, Internet access, telecommuting and other emerging services for home and business PC users. The modem offers throughput speeds of up to 10 Mbps in the downstream path and upstream throughput up to 768 Kbps. The Cable Router is installed in the network headend, where it interfaces with the HF/C distribution network to local or remote IP networks.
Motorola's Multimedia Group, a unit of the Messaging, Information & Media Sector, develops, manufactures and markets systems for the convergence of voice, data and video communications services over advanced broadband multimedia platforms. Motorola is one of the world's leading providers of wireless communications, semiconductors, and advanced electronic systems and services. Major equipment businesses include cellular telephone, two-way radio, paging and data communications, personal communications, automotive, defense and space electronics and computers. Motorola semiconductors power communication devices, computers and millions of other products. Motorola's 1995 sales were $27 billion.
Developed by a joint venture between Time Warner Cable and Time Inc., the ROAD RUNNER service represents a unique collaborative effort, drawing upon the sophisticated technological expertise of Time Warner Cable, the vast journalistic resources of Time Inc. and the unrivaled creative and entertainment talent of Warner Bros.
Time Warner Cable is the nation's second largest cable television operator currently serving, with affiliated companies, 11.8 million customers in 37 states. It is a unit of Time Warner Entertainment Company, L.P. Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) is the world's leading media and entertainment company, with interests in magazine and book publishing, recorded music and music publishing, filmed entertainment, broadcasting and theme parks and cable television and cable television programming.
CyberSURFR(TM) is a trademark of Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT). For further information about the Multimedia Group and Motorola Inc. please visit the company's Internet website at http://www.mot.com/multimedia.