ViaGate............................................................
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VIAGATE TECHNOLOGIES UNVEILS VDSL ACCESS GEAR
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While Internet entrepreneurs hungry to put real-time video on the Net wait patiently for a higher-bandwidth solutions to emerge (like CableLabs' OpenCable project), some telco-oriented companies are forging ahead with more bandwidth-squeezing xDSL-related ventures.
The Very-high-data-rate Digital Subscriber Line (VDSL) has long been the hotrod of xDSL technology, and has been demonstrated at rates in excess of 50 Mbps-at least in the laboratory. But VDSL is moving closer to a commercial reality with the introduction of a new company and a new product line next week at ComNet in Washington, D.C., (Jan. 26-29).
The new company, Bridgewater, N.J.-based ViaGate Technologies, is entering the broadband access market with a VDSL-based product. The ViaGate 3000 product family is described as access gateways that provide distributed switching for the delivery of services such as interactive digital video, high-speed data, and voice services simultaneously over existing copper telephone wire in high-rise and campus building environments.
The company makes use of ATM cells for the delivery of services to the end user. Michael Van Patten, senior vice president of ViaGate, told sister publication Broadband Networking News that the systems are capable of downstream data rates of 27 Mbps to a distance of up to 1,500 feet. A new chipset is in the works that will extend the range of the equipment to 3,000 feet. "We're testing it in the labs today. We hope to deploy it by summertime," says Van Patten.
ViaGate is a subsidiary of Integrated Network Corp., a multimedia access company active in the Asia/Pacific Rim region. The founders of ViaGate were previously part of INC's multimedia business unit, which also included DAGAZ Technologies, a subsidiary that focused on ADSL technology and was sold to Cisco Systems [CSCO] in September 1997.
ViaGate already has installed 60 lines for the Beijing Telecommunications Administration as part of its VDSL product in China that is valued at more than $2 million. The ViaGate access switches are connected to a video server through an Alcatel ATM switch using OC-3 (155 Mbps) fiber. Both standard telephones and MPEG-2 video feeds are available from the ViaGate switch.
What remains to be determined subsequent to ViaGate's debut is how much of a market exists for VDSL services in North America. According to Vern Mackell, senior analyst data communications at International Data Corp. (IDC), the ViaGate VDSL product is similar to other fiber-to-the-curb technologies.
"This technology is more expensive because you have to bring the fiber so close," he says. "If you use it in a residential neighborhood, you typically bring fiber up close enough for 20 homes [to be within 1,500 feet]," he says.
The best case for cost justifying new fiber deployment, Mackell explains, is in so called "green field" developments-new construction where an infrastructure needs to be put in from scratch. "One of the markets in North America for fiber-to-the-curb would be new builds, but I'm not sure the RBOCs are yet in a mode where they are putting in this stuff [for new construction]," he adds.
Where the telcos already have copper in the ground, many are reluctant to go out, re-dig and put fiber close to the customer without realizing a pay back on the infrastructure. "The question becomes: Is the customer going to go from spending $30 a month for phone service to $100 [a month] for all these other services? If the answer is no, is it worth building fiber out to him and his cheapskate neighbors? The answer is probably no," says Mackell.
ViaGate will be demonstrating the ViaGate 3000 products at ComNet Booth #1728. (ViaGate Technologies, 908/595-6400; IDC, 212/726-0900) |
