Distribution of electronic mail over the broad-band party-line communications network

Cable television (CATV) is unique in that it is the only wire, besides telephone, with potential access to 80 million customers. Many new services have been proposed to utilize this access-from meter reading to transmission of an entire book in seconds. The author postulates that electronic mail is the market CATV should pursue and describes the market potential, a system design in some detail, and an estimate of the costs involved. An intriguing result of this analysis is the possibility of sending mail electronically for only 10 cents a letter.