On 13 July 2000, a press release was issued by InternetNews - ISP News,
announcing the formation of The Wireless DSL Consortium which was founded
by ADC Telecommunications Inc., Conexant Systems Inc., Gigabit Wireless
Inc., Intel Corp., Nortel Networks Inc. and Vyyo. The press release
further stated:
"In order to provide a quick start solution in this year, the consortium
members embraced the Data-Over-Cable Service Interface Specification
(DOCSIS), with enhancements compensating for media access control and
physical layers to support wireless operations."
My personal soapbox and my own opinion:
There are three disturbing points to this announcement with regards to open
access in the wireless fixed point market: quick start, this year, and
DOCSIS. By taking DOCSIS as it is specified today, this wireless effort
will repeat history by condemning the wireless market with the same open
access restrictions as with DOCSIS over cable. Any head down quick start
initiative has no time to design in the support and services necessary to
properly support network open access. This will likely lead wireless
server providers into the same awkward lawsuit situations that are
currently in progress with cable operators by the public for demanding open
access. In addition, when it comes times to fix the problem, the wireless
operators will use the same resistance arguments as cable operators are
using today.
While I am all for the fixed point wireless market to develop vigorously
and with long term establishment, I am not for deploying a system which
is a one ISP solution. My ideal wish would be for such consortiums
to do a deal and leverage the Com21 ATM system. This gives the best
robustness argument for future growth as its protocol is the closest
both to DSL over cable and DSL over wireless as it is ATM based, and
it just plain works for data *and* voice.
At the annual shareholders meeting, Com21 demonstrated their VOX
voice over ATM over cable over wireless system by providing a standard
telephone with dialtone over its wireless testbed in the south bay area.
It is a toll quality system and worked marvelously well. |
