Anyone seen this yet?
02/05 10:30-DJ: Despite Rockwell Plan, U.S. Robotics Says It Has Edge In Modem
War
NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Although U.S. Robotics Corp.'s shares lost ground
earlier this week after rival Rockwell International Corp. moved to better
promote its competing high-speed modem technology, U.S. Robotics insists that
it is months ahead of Rockwell in the battle.
Rockwell Monday disclosed plans to flood the market in the next few months
with millions of computer chips carrying Rockwell's transmission standard. Over
100,000 modem chips will be sent by late this month to computer-modem makers,
who are expected to have products available for consumers by the end of the
month. The firm expects three million or more chip sets to be shipped by
midyear.
The move was a major step in the mounting war between Rockwell, the world's
dominant maker of computer-modem chips with about 70% of the world market, and
U.S. Robotics, the largest U.S. maker of modems, which use chips made by Texas
Instruments Inc. and programmed by U.S. Robotics.
Both companies claim their technology will offer on-line connections as fast
as 56 kilobits per second, about twice as fast as the quickest traditional
modems on the market today. Because the Rockwell and U.S. Robotics technologies
aren't compatible, consumers and Internet service providers will have to choose
between one or the other until product standards are agreed upon.
U.S. Robotics told Dow Jones Tuesday that testing of its x2 technology has
gone on for months in real-world situations, a big advantage compared with
Rockwell's supposedly more rushed market entry. In addition, 325 Internet and
on-line service providers are installing the technology, U.S. Robotics chief
executive Casey Cowell said.
Cowell believes the company's success in winning over service providers that
cover 70% of all on-line subscribers is an important factor. Consumers need to
find similar 56-kbps technology on the other end of a phone line to take
advantage of the greater speed.
Cowell said testing of the x2 technology over normal phone lines has gone
well. The modem performs at speeds of about 50 kbps on 90% of the circuits
tested, he said.
Analysts expect U.S. Robotics to produce about one million x2 modems a
month. Cowell declined comment on production levels.
The rivals have been positioning themselves in a market expected to total
billions of dollars. They both announced plans in September for incompatible
but directly competitive designs that can send as much as 56,000 bits of
computer data per second over regular phone lines. The current maximum is a
rarely reached rate of 33,600 bits per second.
Transmission several times those numbers is attainable over special digital
phone lines or through television-cable connections, but such connections are
rare and relatively expensive. For the moment, millions of home users are tied
to the Internet by conventional, inexpensive phone lines. The new 56K modems,
as they are known, are expected to be snapped up by consumers at initial retail
prices of under $200. The faster modems mean much to Internet use, which
demands ever-speedier connections to deliver increasingly elaborate World Wide
Web contents.
Rockwell appeared to be trailing in the early stages. U.S. Robotics not only
beat the bigger company to the punch with early development but also enjoyed a
technical advantage because some of its current modems may be reprogrammable
with new software to allow the higher speed.
But Rockwell thinks it has caught up and has addressed a major drawback. The
company's previous generation of modem chips, used by hundreds of makers around
the world, relied on a cheaper, nonreprogrammable design. Rockwell has geared
up to produce chips that, like U.S. Robotics, will allow users to reprogram
their modems in the future as technical
details are improved. That is important
especially to operators of commercial phone-in connections.
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All Rights Reserved.
Symbol(s): ROK USRX
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