Fiber optics cable from U.S. brings Internet, baseball to Tijuana

• To install highs-epeed Inter access for the Garibaldi family in Tijuana, Cablemás installer Jesus Aguilera climbed a pole to tap into the cable.
• Cablemás offers broadband Internet connections in Tijuana thanks to a deal with Cox Communications.
• 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 Cablemás, 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.
• The connection allows Cablemás to offer Cox's Channel 4, whose programming includes 145 San Diego Padres baseball games each season.
• It's popular with customers, said Gisela Cárdenas, supervisor of Cablemás' 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 Cablemás began offering two years ago.
• Six years ago, there were few options for a fast connection, said telecommunications expert Alejandro Villalba, manager of Teleserviz, a Tijuana telecom company.
• 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.
• The station, whose transmitter is on Mount San Antonio in Mexico, has the highest U.S. viewership of any Mexican station, Gautereaux said.
• In Tijuana, students at the Colegio Mentor Mexicano, a school for first through 12th grades, are enjoying the benefits of Cox's and Cablemás' perseverance to bring high-speed access to the Net.