BA cites ADSL plans
A fairly written article from the cable side..
The Internet-Access Speed Issue
Can Silicon Valley-telco DSL effort nick cable?
By Jim Barthold
The news that the five Baby Bells, GTE Corp., Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Compaq Computer Corp. will co-develop faster, standardized Internet-access technology in an effort to give cable modems a run for the money drew mostly yawns from MSOs last week.
"It's a non-event," said Steve Craddock, the VP-new media development at Comcast Corp. and a former Bell Atlantic executive. "They'll take another five years trying to figure out [standards]. In the meantime, we'll go do it."
The high-speed digital subscriber line technology, or DSL, that the telco-computer consortium will focus on promotes data transmission over twisted-pair telephone lines at speeds of 1.5 to 9 mbps. That's a lot faster than analog's 56.6 kbps transmission capability and integrated services digital network's [ISDN] speeds of 128 kbps. But even though it's only about one-third the speed capability of cable modems at 27 mbps, DSL is being viewed by the telcos as a way to become a more competitive player in the lucrative Internet-access business.
The consortium that includes U S West, Bell Atlantic, BellSouth, SBC Communications and Ameritech wants to begin marketing standardized DSL modems for about $200 by the Christmas shopping season.
A key feature to making high-speed Internet access a big business will be developing interoperable standards, which cable is pursuing through CableLabs. The telcos are following suit. What's more, Microsoft has invested $1 billion in Comcast Corp., ostensibly to help the MSO rebuild cable plant to offer high-speed access to the Internet. And Microsoft, Sun Microsystems and probably Intel are building key components of Tele-Communications Inc.'s OpenCable box that will include a cable modem.
"Intel is talking to lots of companies, including Microsoft and Compaq, about the need for an open, interoperable standard for DSL communications for consumers," said an Intel spokesman, noting that the details of the consortium's deal will be announced during this week's ComNet trade show in Washington, D.C.
Levent Gun < the VP-engineering at 3Com Corp., which builds cable and analog modems as U.S. Robotics < said the new consortium's standardization efforts are good news. "These two technologies [cable and DSL] pretty much fuel each other," he explained. "To the extent that they are competitive threats to each other, they will actually help broadband deployments by both MSOs and telcos."
In a statement, Bell Atlantic said, "We have been in discussions with this consortium for a number of weeks and are finalizing our plans to join this group before it is formally announced next week."
Bell Atlantic spokesman Larry Plumb said the telco will offer DSL services at "competitive" prices, adding, "Without tipping our hand, we're not talking $200 or $300 a month."
His telco, he added, is the U.S.' largest ISDN provider with 430,000 lines. Bell Atlantic charges from $20 a month for 30 hours of usage to $250 for unlimited service. "It's a bit of a misnomer to think of it [ISDN] as purely data," Plumb said. "The majority of use of it is a business function of voice."
He also said that DSL could cannibalize the telco's business-oriented, point-to-point high-speed T1 services that deliver data at similar rates. But, he added, "It doesn't really serve the same needs as T1. Philosophically, you have to serve the market, and you do it in a way that makes profit and sense."
Cable operators weren't impressed.
"It's old news," Craddock said. "Compaq was always going to go to that. Intel has been providing this technology for a long time. They're just getting around to it, and, in effect, what they're trying to do is create a standards body like what we have with MCNS [Multimedia Cable Network Systems at CableLabs]."
DSL comes in various iterations and speeds. It's often called xDSL in which the "x" serves as a variable in an algebraic equation. In each case, Craddock emphasized, the speed depends on how close the end-user is to the central office, "because the performance degrades with length. When you're at VDSL at the nine-megabit rate, you almost have to be close enough [to the central office] to hit it with a rock."
He added that cable modems are "faster and they're more economical, because you're dealing in router technology, so it's a one-to-many scenario. xDSL is always a one-to-one. There is always one modem on each end, so inherently, it's more expensive."
Plumb conceded that "there's some work [to be done] behind the plant" to prepare for the high-speed technology. But, he added, "This leans much more in the direction of what's called Ovariable cost-type' of technology as opposed to the real high fixed costs when you upgrade your plant with fiber optics."
Bell Atlantic has long been planning an aggressive DSL deployment. "Last summer, Bell Atlantic indicated that starting in mid-year '98, it was going to be in the commercial deployment of DSL technology," Plumb said. "That's on track. This idea of a consortium that would, through these standards, try to accelerate deployment and make it affordable, [something] that's motherhood and apple pie."
DSL technology was originally thought to be a way to squeeze video signals into twisted pair. "It turned out the assumptions we began with just didn't prove in, and we were wrong," Plumb said. "We realized pretty early on [that] ADSL was never really an end-game for video."
He added that Bell Atlantic has been testing ADSL Internet access in northern Virginia since September 1996, delivering data downstream at 1.5 mbps with a 64-kbps upstream return.
Craddock said that no matter how fast the telcos go, cable will go faster. DSL, he noted, "is still only one-third the speed of a cable modem, and it's going to go higher than that when they go to 256 QAM [quadrature amplitude modulation]. It will jump to about 37."
(January 26, 1998)
Cable World
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