[Conference Call Part II-B]
Part II-A just disappeared. Honest. I wrote out the conclusion and went to check my email in case one of my broker friends sent something I missed and when I clicked back here, nada. A new twist on the dog ate my homework, to be sure. :((
BTW, Ricky Lee Jones was, well, interesting. I'm glad I went. I loved Haunty-House, or whatever it's called. Absolutely entrancing and the guy on the synthesizer and all that computer equipment is really the genius on that one, not Jones. As for Jones, she was either slightly high or has the aura down to a science. A few times I wondered if she were bored, almost as if she were thinking, You guys don't really buy this crap, do you. . . " And yet, there were moments when she defied time and I was swept into another dimension. Not many artists can do that.
Now down to business.
HKT --- VDSL contract with NEC is on schedule. There'll be a "couple hundred thousand in '98." [250K lines by 1999, as listed in the November press release.] I didn't catch the 2M figure, but a friend taped the call, so I'll check first thing tomorrow morning. VDSL chips will be out in test batches by end of year and shipping first part of '98.
ALA -- I asked what Amati could expect beyond licensing and JS said, "I can't discuss that." One of my favorite responses. :)
Licensing agreement due this summer, "next few weeks." They're working with several carriers and some are close to complete. All acknowledge need for licensing.
Amati feels good about intellectual property. 90% of work on Issue II of the Standards committee is complete. All Amati awards holding up well. The only company who says they don't need a license is Orckit. However, if they want to add bit-swapping algorithms that will allow their products to talk to other DMT products, they'll have to license.
Amati hasn't talked to Aware. They expect ADI to license. If Aware's DMT is shipped on silicon other than ADI's, then someone else needs a license.
You asked if Amati's manufacturing can handle a consortium fall-out if ALA is slow. That wasn't handled in the conference call, but I've heard estimates of over 30K a month by the end of this year. Are you suggesting because Alcatel doesn't have an ANSI-compliant solution available now they might ask Amati to share the consortium orders until they do? Not a bad proposition. :))
In my opinion, the most telling comments of the call were:
1) Hint that they're working with Alcatel beyond licensing.
2) Timing of chips --- CG out in a few weeks (comm. quantities 2 mos. later) and TI's C6X shipping Oct. 9. Also progress on discrete analog portion --- cost,power,space and density issues solved.
3) Position with GTE and possibility of deployment announcement some time this summer, perhaps in July.
4) Strength of HKT VDSL contract.
5) Progress with Amati's own LSI chip (importance seemingly overlooked).
6) Confidence that DMT is winner and line-code war is over.
After the call, I spoke with RC regarding JS's comment that there'd be "several hundred thousand modems deployed in '98." I reminded him Amati would have half the world market based on the Siemens'and unnamed telco contracts if that were true, and he laughed and said he wondered if I'd catch that. He then admitted JS had been rather conservative.
Ah, well, I don't mind having half the world market, do you?
Cheers!
Pat
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