Robert, one poster mentions the need for GTE to divest some assets to complete a merger. This market of cell phone operators are predicted to merge and merge until there remains only 6 or 10 players world wide. How does this effect VARL?
Also, I start to see more and more Fixed Broadband Wireless announcements. Thanks to Pat, I've taken a position in Netro and begin to understand more and more about this extremely interesting growth market. I see Netro is a big buyer of VARL products. Is there any thing you have to say about Netro and how they play into this market? I still find the segment a question as some companies have different abilities to meet high speed connections. Netro for example seems to top out at 16 Mbps while I read other announcements about Giga bit transmission.
Finally, there is the whole Cisco entry into the FWB market, but from what I read they seem to be focused on MMDS, or slower low frequency spectrum. I heard Bill Ruehle from Broadcom speak on the weekend, and he was talking some about this market and how they thought it would be a good addition to their bottom line. But, this low frequency spectrum seems to be the weak end of potential because it just doesn't have the speed to please.
Are you looking for VARL products to be deployed in the customer end of FWB? I went to the Streaming Media trade show in San Jose, and saw countless demos of the latest streaming video and audio. It seems clear that there must be a transmission speed minimum of 600 Kbps to get choppy, but viewable full screen video. Something like 28 frames per second at that rate. Actually, it only gets good at 1.5 mbps and actually may get better than normal TV above 3mbps.
So, it seems to me that all this ADSL story will be an interesting interim play, but the full story of TV, Games, telephone, e-commerce. learning, etc will all need a better solution, or at least better than they currently deliver with xDSL. The RBOC's are not going to have much loyalty when another provider steps up to the plate with the full range of service.
By the way, there are a lot of companies standing ready to provide a great variety of services for entertainment as soon as broadband is ready. People will see value for this speed.
Is there a market for VARL in Wireless LAN's? Companies like Proxim and paving the way for people to get home Lan's that don't need wires. Could this be another market for VARL? Intel has taken a stake in the WLAN home market and it seems that these functions might be widely pushed next year.
Regards,
Mark
PS Something not related to VARL, but cool none the less is an ability to click on the video feeds of these broadband downloads and view information about what you see. It's here now. You can watch a movie like Matrix, and think the sunglasses are cool. Click your mouse on the thing that interests you while viewing and find out who makes them, and even buy. No, the people and market will not stand for less than 1 Mbps downloads for long. |
