Gandalf Tech stake in FTEL and the Cyclone!
Raleighm, thanks for post #8. You seem to know a lot about FTEL. I was wondering if you know how large a stake Gandalf Tech has in FTEL?
Gandalf recently announced they are upgrading to a special 56 modem. Could this be FTEL's Cyclone modem? Sounds reasonable to buy products from a company you have a stake in.
What would the possibility be of USRX buying the "Cyclone" from FTEL and marketing it in a new product line? It only stands to reason for the little company to do all the leg work in designing & manufacturing a 56 modem at a cheaper price and then selling the technology out to a company like USRX who is well recognized and has a large distribution base. In the long run, this would be a win-win situation for both! USRX would have a new product (with a neat name to boot) that is cheaper to manufacture than current 56 modems. FTEL would benefit because more ISPs would be attracted to the savings in upgrading to the FTEL's D-Mark Digital Channel Bank. And I haven't even mentioned Franklin's new Hurricane!
If USRX wanted to just buy out this small company, as a marketer what do you think would be a fair price and why?
This is the FTEL news release about the CYCLONE:
Franklin Cyclone, its new product developed in conjunction with StarComm Products has completed a design upgrade to take advantage of the new 56,000 bit per second Modem chip set introduced by Rockwell.
Franklin joins U. S. Robotics, Hayes and other leaders in the modem industry who have announced similar intentions to utilize the new technology.
The Cyclone combines Franklin's D-Mark channel bank with StarComm's V.34 28,800 bps modems, eliminating redundant SLIC functions for each of the 8 modems as well as the D-Mark's 8 port Analog Voice card. The addition of the new 56k chip will increase the Cyclone's speed
capability to 56,000 bps which will be the next state-of-the-art benchmark.
The new Rockwell chip requires a channel bank on one end of the circuit; by contrast, the typical V.34 modem is a point to point device which requires a modem on both ends of the line. The
Cyclone can receive a T1 Telco circuit with the packets of the new 56k chip embedded and connect it directly to the Franklin D-Mark channel bank. The output then looks just like the output of a 56k digital modem on a DB25 connector.
Phil Sutter, StarComm President said, "We are very pleased with the way the new Rockwell specs complement our Cyclone design. StarComm has always been very active in providing communications solutions for Internet Service Providers (ISP). The timing of this latest technological step forward couldn't be better for us."
Frank Peters, Franklin's President & CEO, adds, "This keeps us in the forefront of the industry for the combined modem/channel bank product. Even more importantly, the new product will significantly reduce the cost for a high speed line. This translates into major savings for ISP's!"
Pricing and delivery for the new version are not available at this printing. The Cyclone will be marketed through Franklin's existing reseller channels and new distributors as they come on board.
Press Release can be read at: ftel.com./
Street Walker |
