Alcatel is the French equivalent of Lucent, Seimens, or Nortel, i.e., huge and with a broad array of telecom products ranging from components to CO switches. In addition to France, where they still have the lion's share of the market, they are strong in a lot of the parts of the world which used to be French colonies. They have had HDSL systems on the market for some time, but at least originally were relying on Brooktree and Level One for chips. The fact that they are developing an ADSL chipset has been known for awhile, but this is the first design win I have heard of. ADI and Orckit also have DMT-based chipsets available, LSI and Pair Gain have announced they will offer them, and I would be amazed if TI isn't busily at work as we speak (or type, I guess). None have announced licensing agreements with Amati.
I have heard that Ascend is developing this product at a separate site in Southern Cal., maybe to tap into the defense communications/DSP talent there.
I agree with you that this is further validation for the reality of ADSL, but I think it further supports the view that Amati's sucess is tied to their system-level products, and that we cannot depend on royalties from chip sales to bail us out. If there were to be a sudden rush of additional licensing agreements, or failing that, of patent infringement suits against the other DMT-based chipset vendors, I will be happy to be wrong (again). However, even the company is unwilling to help us project the possible royalty stream. For all we know, the Motorola license could be fully-paid and royalty free in return for an up-front payment made years ago. |
