If ECI is shipping ADSL/DMT ANSI-compliant products, their customers are in violation of TI's patents.
What about RBAK, CMTN, CSCO, NN, NT, and the myriad other DSL "equipment" providers. Your original list of DSL patent licensees were all DSL chip vendors. I'm sorry Pat, but it just makes no sense to me that equipment vendors who use off the shelf compenents (like the ones I mention above) would be the target of any type of DSL licensing issues. TI, if it owns any significant IP, would sell its own chips (and require no licensing of these customers), and license its designs/patents to other chip vendors.
As I understand it, NN's solution does away with the need for a dSLAM.
Solution for what? Does away with the need for a DSLAM? Pat, think for a moment what a DSLAM does. It muxes/grooms many lines for presentation to a ATM switch, or to an IP network, where the data is routed to the appropriate destination. The vast majority of DSL lines will be for pure internet services, and for voice service over the same line. An ATM switch, by definition, doesn't provide near the density requirements COs need to deploy these services cost effectively. And what is NN 350, anyway? Is this a DSLAM? Why can't I find a datasheet on this at the NN website? Is it a re-jigged 150 switch?
Video over ATM over DSL may have a market. But I doubt it will be sizable enough for the ILECs and CLECs to scrap current and future investments in DSLAM. At least that what the stock prices of companies CMTN, RBAK, etc is telling me.
Gary |
