European Last Mile Access Doubts
Buried
Blizzard of announcements at Telecom 99 bury
last mile jitters
Carl Weinschenk, tele.com
Any doubt that broadband last mile access is reaching Europe was
buried, no doubt permanently, under a blizzard of announcements this
week at Telecom 99.
The announcements focused on digital subscriber line (DSL) and
wireless local loop (WLL). The other major broadband access
technique-cable modems-will be more prominently displayed in
London next week during European Cable Communications '99. If
what was displayed in Geneva represents a only a portion of the
emerging class of broadband last mile access choices, it is indeed a
rosy picture.
"I am absolutely convinced broadband will become big in both
consumer and business-to-business applications because people are
reaching the limits of current technology," said Marco Wanders, the
regional manager the Benelux countries for Redback Networks Inc.
(Sunnyvale, Calif.).
The reality is that that the last mile is the bottleneck is receding, said
Dan Arazi, executive vice president of Rocket Communications Ltd.
(Tel Aviv). "I think this is the case of the past," he said. "Now it's a
question of how best to do it, not whether or when." Arazi will chair a
panel discussion on local access issues called "Access
Networks-Wireline Access" Friday at 2 PM.
There were announcements from big and small companies alike at
Telecom 99. Telekom Austria awarded a contract for 20,000
Asymmetric DSL (ADSL) lines to Alcatel. Two vendors-Alcatel and
VDSL Systems Inc. (Espoo, Finland)-showed very high-speed digital
access (VDSL) gear. Rocket announced the availability of splitterless
full-rate DSL during the show. Alcatel used the show to announce that
it is suing Rocket for patent infringement.
On the loosely-defined wireless local loop (WLL) front, Spike
Technologies Inc. (Nashua, N.H.) announced the customization of its
PRIZM BDS System 3000 for the European market. Alcatel
introduced a local multipoint distribution system (LMDS) and said
that the first product for the customer is KPN Belgium. BreezeCOM
Ltd. (Tel Aviv) demonstrated its recently introduced IP-based
broadband WLL system. Adaptive Broadband Communications
(Sunnyvale, Calif.) and Jetstream Communications (Los Gatos, Calif.)
announced a wireless voice-over-asynchronous transfer mode (ATM)
system.
Finally, Floware Wireless Systems Ltd. (Or Yehuda, Israel) announced
that it had increased the capacity of its WALKair wireless broadband
access system, which is aimed at small and medium sized businesses,
by a factor of ten.
How intensely network service providers deploy these and other
platforms depends on several factors, including: whether the national
PTT is divesting its cable networks; the penetration of Personal
Computers; level of interest in the Internet; the condition of the
country existing copper infrastructure; and the technical and business
health of the cable television providers.
DSL and cable modems are estimated to be
a year to 18 months behind similar efforts in
the US. Sharp competition between cable
modem and DSL providers is expected in
Holland, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Finland
and France because the national PTTs do
not own the cable companies in those
countries, cable tends to be well
penetrated-about 97 percent of households
in the Netherlands get cable, for example--and the networks are
relatively new and easily upgradeable to two-way operation, said Mats
Samuelsson, director of product management for Motorola. The
Benelux countries are also rolling out ADSL, Wanders said. Not
surprisingly, countries in which the PTTs don't face cable competition
are moving slower. In the U.S., carriers moved slowly in order to
protect their T-1 revenues, while European incumbent local exchange
carriers (ILECs) are more protective of their ISDN services.
The fact that the U.S. has already been through similar growing pains
is helping Europe, executives said. "After the Telecom Act of 1996,
there was confusion in the marketplace," said Hans-Erhard Reiter, the
chairman of the ADSL Forum. "People didn't understand the business
case. I think what you see in Europe and elsewhere is that people are
looking at the U.S. and trying to understand what the hell happened."
The fortunes of DSL will be further enhanced by the introduction of
G.Lite gear around Christmas, Reiter said. Among the most aggressive
companies are TeleDanmark and Telia. Plans exist for rollouts in
Austria, France, Portugal and elsewhere, he said. Reiter expects about
70,000 DSL lines to be installed by the end of 1999.
telecom99news.itu.int |
