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Why do we call them modems?

M

mikable

Senior member
Just curious, because I always thought of a modem as a, MOdulator/DEModulator, a device that changes a digital computer signal to an analog Telephone signal and back again. Yet the industry has assigned it to Terminal Adaptors for cable and DSL. Is this Just a case of Lowest Common Denominator? In a sense the dumming down of words and ideas to reach the uneducated masses.
 
The term modem stems from modulator/demodulator, true, but today it just means something like customer end access hardware. Technically incorrect, yes, in some cases, but everyone understands what it means, so that's okay. Wouldn't call it dumbing down either, it kinda grew that way, I don't think anyone consciously renamed a transceiver to modem to save himself from explaining it to people.

BTW, cable modems are, in fact modems, in the technical definition of the word.
 
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