To install highs-epeed Inter access for the Garibaldi family in Tijuana, Cablem�s installer Jesus Aguilera climbed a pole to tap into the cable.
Cablem�s 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 Cablem�s, 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 Cablem�s to offer Cox's Channel 4, whose programming includes 145 San Diego Padres baseball games each season.
It's popular with customers, said Gisela C�rdenas, supervisor of Cablem�s' 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 Cablem�s 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 Cablem�s' perseverance to bring high-speed access to the Net.