[tomorrow's WSJ]
will run this article on the BA/WSTL/DIGI contract. Amati is mentioned twice and the GTE trails are mentioned. good stuff.
mark
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DSC Gets ADSL Contract In Pact With Bell Atlantic
Dow Jones Newswires
Bell Atlantic Corp. said it awarded a four-year contract to telecommunications-equipment maker DSC Communications Corp. for equipment and software based on the speedy Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line, or ADSL, data-transmission technology.
Terms of the contract weren't disclosed. DSC will work with Westell Technologies Inc., a developer of ADSL technology, to bolster DSC's existing Litespan 2000 modem, which Bell Atlantic already uses.
ADSL promises to speed up the delivery of data by increasing the data-carrying capacity of traditional copper telephone wires. It is much faster than competing services such as ISDN, but doesn't require special lines or other costly infrastructure improvements.
Bell Atlantic, of Philadelphia, plans to launch a service using ADSL technology in mid-1998, and has said the service will allow consumers to receive data from the Internet at speeds of six megabits a second -- about 100 times faster than the fastest analog modem currently on the market.
Shares of Westell and Amati Communications Corp., another developer of ADSL technology, had been volatile of late amid rumors that a key pact was in the works with a big telephone company to develop such technology.
DSC's shares climbed $1.563 to $24.188 on the Nasdaq Stock Market Monday, while shares of Westell rose 50 cents to $19.75 and shares of Amati slipped 37.5 cents to $12.375.
GTE Corp., Bell Atlantic and other phone companies have been testing ADSL product for several months; rumors had Westell close to a deal with Bell Atlantic or GTE. Amati last week announced that GTE will expand the trials, but that wasn't the big announcement investors had awaited.
Some of the Baby Bell companies plan to start rolling out ADSL-based modem services later this year as a direct challenge to cable-television companies that aim to offer high-speed Internet access via cable lines.
Shares of some ADSL companies have lost ground in recent months, partly because of fears that telecom-equipment heavyweights could steal the lead in the nascent market by selling products substantially below cost. Motorola Inc. and Northern Telecom Ltd. have said they will compete for ADSL business, and Westell last year lost out on a key ADSL contract to French conglomerate Alcatel Alsthom SA. |
