Inter@ctive Week<Picture>January 20, 1998
Speedier Net Technologies On The Way
By Mel Duvall
10:00 AM EST
<Picture>Surfers with a need for speed may soon have a number of different options from which to choose.
Compaq Computer Corp., Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp. and many of the large telephone companies next week will announce they are joining together to speed consumers' access to the Internet, according to a story in today's New York Times.
According to the report, the group is looking to develop modems that attach to regular phone lines and enable users to get data from the Web 30 times faster than they can today.
In another announcement, Lucent Technologies Inc. unveiled a new Digital Subscriber Line chip set that it said can achieve download speeds of up to 1.5 megabits per second. That's about 30 times the speed of today's analog modems.
And, separately, Intel officially launched a new product called "Quick Web," which it said will greatly reduce the time it takes to download pages from the Internet.
Intel's Quick Web system, which will be made available for a fee through Internet service providers (ISPs), uses compression technology to deliver graphic information at a higher speed.
Quick Web includes a "Web-O-Meter" feature that shows an estimated performance gain. The company said performance varies, but many users noticed it cut the time to download a page in half.
Intel also is offering ISPs a way to "cache" or store Web pages frequently used by their customers, to provide faster response times.
Several ISPs have agreed to offer the product, including Erol's Internet Inc., GlobalCenter Inc. and Netcom On-Line Communication Services Inc.
Netcom participated in a two-month trial of the product with about 700 customers, and Scott Wills, senior vice president of new business ventures, said the response was very positive.
"When we do customer research, there's clearly a strong appetite for increased speed," he said. "Our tests showed that the product lives up to its billing."
Meanwhile, Lucent said its new modem technology will finally deliver on the promise of Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line modems.
Dubbed Wildfire, the modems will allow data to be downloaded at 1.5 Mbps and not interfere with telephone conversations. The chip set will sell for about $60 in quantities of 10,000, allowing manufacturers to produce modems at about $200.
Lucent said the modems will be available by year's end, but implementation by telcos may be delayed until a standard is achieved with competitors, including Northern Telecom Inc. and Texas Instruments Inc. |
