5/11/98 NY Times. Support Grows for Faster Modem Speeds
By SETH SCHIESEL
Lending international support to a U.S. effort to give consumers
high-speed access to cyberspace, the largest foreign
telecommunications companies have agreed to join an industry group to
work on ways to transmit huge volumes of information over standard
telephone wires.
The group intends to announce Monday the membership of British
Telecommunications, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, Nippon
Telegraph and Telephone, and Singapore Telecommunications,
according to people involved with the organization, known as the
Universal ADSL Working Group.
ADSL stands for asymmetric digital subscriber line, a technology that
the group said could allow consumers to link their personal computers
to the Internet at speeds 30 times as fast as those possible with the
most advanced modems generally available today.
Compaq Computer, Intel Corp. and Microsoft Corp., three titans of
the personal-computer world, announced the group's formation in
January along with the United States' six largest local telephone
companies. The group is trying to make modems based on ADSL
technology available to the general public by the end of the year.
The support of the overseas phone giants promises to strongly increase
the group's prospects of developing a global standard for the phone-line
technology. Many variants of the system have been invented, but the
lack of a single standard has held back deployment by telephone
companies, which are reluctant to invest hundreds of millions of dollars
in network equipment that could prove incompatible with other
companies' systems.
For the ADSL group, the foreign carriers' support should make it easier
to win the support of the International Telecommunications Union,
which coordinates global technical standards. The group is hoping to
have the ITU's approval by the fall.
Within the United States, the support of the foreign carriers also gives
U.S. telecommunications companies new leverage in their battle with
the cable-television industry to provide the next generation of
technology for connecting consumers to the Internet.
Many technology and media executives believe there is a vast market
waiting to be tapped by companies that can deliver lightning-quick
Internet access to the nation's households.
Currently, even the fastest modems
commonly available often make
browsing the Net a frustratingly
slow experience. The nation's local
telephone companies predict that
many consumers would be willing to
spend up to $50 a month for an
Internet connection that could
provide in seconds what takes
today's modems minutes to deliver.
As a bonus, the version of ADSL technology being developed by the
working group could provide a continuous Internet link and normal
telephone service over the same line, allowing people to simultaneously
talk on the phone and surf the World Wide Web.
Dozens of telecommunications equipment companies are involved in the
working group, including Aware Inc., a small company based in
Massachusetts, which has contributed technology that could enable a
consumer to set up an ADSL modem without the help of a trained
technician.
Last week Lucent Technologies Inc., the giant
communications-equipment maker spun off from AT&T Corp. in 1996,
announced that it had licensed Aware's technology for use in Lucent's
microchips intended for ADSL modems.
Deploying such subscriber-line systems quickly and in a user-friendly
way is imperative for most big local phone companies because the
cable industry has taken an early lead in delivering high-capacity, or
broadband, access to cyberspace.
Analysts estimate that about 200,000 homes in the United States now
use modems connected to a cable-television network rather than
telephone wires. The number of homes now using various ADSL
technologies is a mere fraction of that.
Helping the deployment of high-speed data systems is also critical to the
personal-computer industry. Put simply, if most homes remain
connected to the Internet by today's relatively thin pipelines, there is less
of a reason for consumers to buy faster computers and more powerful
software.
Microsoft, though, has been covering its bets on network-access
technology. The company is one of the main forces behind the ADSL
group, but Microsoft has also invested $1 billion in Comcast Corp., one
of the nation's largest cable-television companies.
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