Imagine a world where broadband did not exist. Without this high-speed data transfer, would the Internet still be the hub of information, pictures, movie , and business opportunities it is today? The fast connection speeds required the invention of the cable modem, and the man who did that was Iranian-born American electrical engineer Rouzbeh Yassini (b. 1958).
Yassini worked for General Electric in 1981 building television receivers. To understand how the signals flowed, he took home television sets and dismantled them to see how they functioned. This knowledge proved useful when in 1986 he joined Proteon, a data- networking company that used a network cable called "twisted pair" to carry data.
Despite being told that video and data did not mix, Yassini realized right from the beginning that he could employ the same coaxial wire that carried cable television into people's homes to deliver other information as well. In 1990 he created a new company called LANcity Corp. He and his thirteen-strong team started to build a device that would provide an interface between a data network on one side and a cable television network on the Other—the first cable modem. The initial model retailed at a staggering $15,000 and took three months to install. Just five years later, however, the third-generation LAN city modem was "plug and play" and cost just $500.
The company was bought very soon after this for $59 million by Bay Networks. Yassini went on 'to spearhead the development, implementation, and certification of DOCSIS, a standard for carrying data over cable modems.
