ITU Working to Resolve 56K Modem
Standard Issues
By Carmen Nobel
December 12, 1997 2:39 PM PST
PC Week
An ITU study group has resolved two of the biggest issues
standing in the way of a 56K-bps modem standard,
making approval of a common specification next month
more likely than ever.
A subset of the International Telecommunications Union,
at a meeting in Orlando, Fla., earlier this month, voted in
favor of a compromise proposed by Intel Corp. that calls
for the use of mapping technology from 3Com Corp. and
spectral shaping from Motorola Inc. The ITU in September
failed to resolve the contentious issue of which spectral
shaping and mapping technology to implement in the
standard.
The resolution is a breakthrough for the 56K-bps
standard, which has been divided for several months
between two incompatible camps: 3Com's x2 technology
and the K56Flex format jointly developed by Rockwell
Semiconductor Systems Inc. and Lucent Technologies Inc.
With these two issues resolved, observers believe a
56K-bps modem standard is drawing close.
"It's never absolutely certain until it's done," said John
Magill, chairman of the working party in charge of the
standard and a consultant for Lucent Technologies . "But
these were the two major issues holding things up, and
they're out of the way now."
The ITU is expected to pass the final 56K-bps modem
standard at a meeting in Geneva in January, Magill said. If
that happens, vendors are expected to be able to ship
standards-based products by mid-1998, even though the
specification would not be officially ratified until
September.
The standard will be a big relief to modem and chip-set
vendors. |
