"It's not politically correct to say G.Lite is dead," said Armando Geday, president and CEO of Red Bank, N.J.-based GlobeSpan, a supplier of multiprotocol ADSL chips. "But I believe that [G.Lite and full-rate ADSL] will be combined. G.Lite will become a mere feature [of ADSL]."
Full Article:
G.Lite Not Mass Market Delight
(11/15/99, 2:25 p.m. ET) By Mark LaPedus, Electronic Buyers' News
The twin realities of market economics and technical feasibility are grinding the emerging G.Lite communicationsprotocol to a halt, causing chip manufacturers to combine the consumer-oriented service with more robust -- and profitable -- technology.
Though the protocol held much promise just a year ago, carriers have been reluctant to embrace G.Lite, citing concerns related to signal integrity and the ability of the average copper-wired home to support the mass-market DSL service. Instead, many carriers are moving ahead with full-rate asymmetric DSL, or considering a G.Lite/ADSL hybrid product.
"My guess is that G.Lite will get deployed to some degree," said Elias Moosa, an analyst at Thomas Weisel Partners, San Francisco. "But in the long run, a chip maker will have to offer a multiprotocol product [that combines the features of G.Lite and full-rate ADSL]."
Others were more blunt.
"I don't see anybody deploying G.Lite," said Kurt Eckles, ADSL product manager at Texas Instruments, Dallas. "I have not received any RFQ [requests for quotations] for G.Lite from the carriers in the United States or outside the United States. They are all asking for [full-rate ADSL]."
G.Lite transports data over a phone line at speeds of up to 1.5 megabits per second, approximately 25 times faster than analog modems. The protocol is actually a stripped-down version of ADSL, which transports data at speeds ranging from 384 kilobits per second to 8 Mbits/s.
The problem with the technology can be traced back to its origins. Developed early last year by Compaq, Intel, and Microsoft, G.Lite originally was envisioned as a low-cost, always-on technology that could be easily deployed to the masses. Unlike ADSL, G.Lite does not require the installation of a splitter at the home to separate the phone and data services that traverse a shared line.
However, G.Lite encountered major problems in field tests during the last year. Data-connection rates were hindered, due in part to the poor quality of copper wiring in most households. And signaling problems between the phone line and the modem forced carriers to install an expensive passive component called a microfilter in every phone jack.
Even so, companies entrenched within the G.Lite camp, including communications chip giant Lucent Technologies, said reports of the technology's demise are greatly exaggerated. Craig Garen, general manager of modem and multimedia products at Lucent's Microelectronics Group, Allentown, Pa.,said he envisions a market in which carriers employ full-rate ADSL equipment in the central office, which, in turn, would connect to G.Lite-enabled modems in the home.
"It's far from the reality to say that G.Lite is dead," Garen said. "If the end user has a G.Lite-enabled modem, he will get a better connection."
"We still see a strong market for G.Lite," said a spokesman for Ambient Technologies, the former modem division of Fremont, Calif.-based Cirrus Logic. Ambient this week will roll out a chip that combines G.Lite and V.90 analog modem capabilities on the same device, and is working on a full-rate ADSL chip as well.
A number of suppliers already offer multiprotocol devices, while others that now sell G.Lite-only chips are scrambling to develop full-rate ADSL products. However, some observers said a technology hybrid would cause confusion in the market as chip makers reluctant to scrap their G.Lite products integrate them with their full-rate ADSL lines.
Given the difference of opinion, it remains uncertain how the future of G.Lite will affect the worldwide deployment of DSL services. But it's clear that any failure of G.Lite to gain acceptance in the market would be a major setback for ADSL chip manufacturers and OEMs -- many of which spent millions of dollars on product development and compati- bility tests.
What's more, the problems encountered by G.Lite aren't unique to the standard. Even full-rate ADSL services, which have been around for some time, have had their share of problems, according to Will Strauss of Forward Concepts, Tempe, Ariz.
"ADSL is fast...when it's working," Strauss said.
The industry is not standing still, however. Recently, several OEMs simplified their technology by developing cheaper microfilters and full-rate ADSL equipment that does not require a splitter at the home. But executives at a number of companies said the very advances that make ADSL a more palatable consumer technology will also contribute to the obsolescence of G.Lite.
"Now that we could offer a splitterless full-rate ADSL technology, carriers are beginning to question the logic of deploying [G.Lite]," said Jay Fausch, senior director of strategic marketing at the DSL Business Unit at Alcatel's Dallas-based U.S. equipment subsidiary. Alcatel is the sole ADSL-equipment supplier for all U.S. carriers, with the exception of U S West.
G.Lite must also confront the daunting issue of economics. Faced with the 1.5-Mbit/s maximum speed of G.Lite, carriers may consider it more profitable to back full-rate ADSL by offering a range of speeds and services at various price points, Fausch said.
Nevertheless, some carriers in the United States, where G.Lite has yet to be deployed, are reluctant to dismiss the technology.
"We're still evaluating G.Lite," said a spokesman for San Antonio-based SBC Communications, the parent company of Ameritech, Cellular One, Nevada Bell, Pacific Bell, and Southwestern Bell.
Since June, SBC has been ramping up its DSL services based on full-rate ADSL technology. In fact, demand for these services has grown to 100,000 subscribers, up from 32,000 in June, according to the spokesman.
Indeed, the market for ADSL services is projected to reach at least three million subscribers worldwide by next year, up from 100,000 in 1998, according to In-Stat Group, Scottsdale, Ariz. But at the same time, other broadband technologies are making inroads, including cable modem products and wireless-based Internet-access services.
In the ADSL-chip world, however, the debate among vendors over the fate of G.Lite rages on.
"It's not politically correct to say G.Lite is dead," said Armando Geday, president and CEO of Red Bank, N.J.-based GlobeSpan, a supplier of multiprotocol ADSL chips. "But I believe that [G.Lite and full-rate ADSL] will be combined. G.Lite will become a mere feature [of ADSL]."
It is not a big problem to kill one flavor of ADSL: The DSL Forum is there to create another one next Monday! |
