Although the article's title appears negative towards DSL, upon closer reading Westell's xDSL products are mentioned very favorably. It mentions Westell's FlexCap2 as the "best performing CAP modem". It is interesting to note Avalon's findings that DMT products were more susceptible to speed drops due to low-quality circuits and long lines than were devices using the alternative, CAP technology. It was also interesting to note that the article generally slammed the Amati and Aware modems because of long delays to re-establish dropped connections. Both of these are DMT modems.
Westell's strategy of being line-code agnostic, offering the customer what he wants, may in fact be the best strategy in the long run. Everyone seems to be rushing towards DMT technology, yet in real world testing, it appears that it still has quite a way to go. We pretty much know that the Bell Atlantic DSL roll-out, whenever it occurs, will be based on CAP technology. Do you suppose the RBOCs already had the Avalon testing information, and were simply not releasing it? Will Motorola's introduction of the long-awaited CopperGold chip, with its low power consumption requirements, impact any of the RBOC decisions? Needless to say, it will be interesting when Avalon releases its findings publicly at the DSLcon '98 conference in San Jose this week.
Hopefully, we'll soon see some positive announcements from Westell this week.
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