Nortel trumpets Webtone future
by Christopher Guly
Special to Computing Canada
plesman.com
NEPEAN, Ont.- A company surely realizes it has a sound vision when other
businesses come along and adopt it. On April 22, Bell Canada launched a
$750-million plan to create a yet-to-be-named company that would provide
high-speed data and Internet services for its national business customers.
The same day in Nepean, just west of Ottawa, senior executives with Northern
Telecom Ltd. held a one-day, by-invitation-only open house explaining how
telephone companies such as Bell will be able to tap into the growing demand for
high-speed data over the Net.
"By the year 2000, IP traffic could account for more than half the capacity in the
long-haul network," Mike Scott, vice-president of Nortel's hardware echnology
division told the gathering of analysts and government officials.
To manage and improve the traffic flow, Nortel has developed technology it calls
Webtone, which is being developed by about 3,000 of the company's 18,000
engineers. Fibre-optic lines will be able to carry considerably more data and
modems will be faster than ever, according to the company.
As a result, connections to the Internet will be immediate, eliminating the delays
now encountered with dialups.
And forget about sitting on your hands waiting for a video clip to download onto
your computer screen. It will happen instantly.
Nortel president and CEO John Roth wishes that the promise of Webtone were
already reality. Not long ago, he was in search of a Wurlitzer jukebox. The four
shops Roth visited told him they hadn't sold one in years.
"So I went on the Web and 10 days later the thing was in my basement," said Roth
proudly. When viewing it on the Net, however, Roth said, "All I got was a picture
of a Wurlitzer and couldn't see inside."
Roth said the wonders of Webtone could have offered him a three-dimensional,
virtual tour of the music-maker, giving him a thorough glimpse inside and outside
the jukebox.
Nortel believes there are more people like Roth who want fast and complete
information .
"In 1996, data represented four per cent of wireless traffic and the rest was voice,"
said Peter Mac- Laren, vice-president of business development for Nortel's
Wireless Networks. "In 2005, data will represent 70 per cent and voice 30 per
cent."
As a result, within 18 months, Nortel plans to introduce new wireless products that
would boost residential Internet access at rates up to 10 Mbps. Handheld pagers
of the future using Webtone technology would boast Web page downloading
speeds of 2 Mbps.
This cyber-Concorde environment Nortel envisions is already in flight.
The company has received more than $220 million (U.S.) in orders for its 1 Mb
modems, developed with Rockwell International last year.
"It supports simultaneous data and voice transmission on the same phone line,"
explained John Bourne, vice-president of Nortel's Broadband Networks.
Since it comes with a voice and data line card, the 1 Mb modem also eliminates the
need and the cost to have someone install a splitter into the home. All you need to
do is pay for the device at a price Roth believes is right: $280 for the modem,
which Nortel hopes to sell to 70 million North American customers already served
by telcos using Nortel's DMS technology.
"We've set very pragmatic cost targets for ourselves," said Roth. "It should be no
more than the price of a modem today and no more than $28 a month for Internet
subscriptions.
"If you can't make it fit within that, it's the wrong answer."
That affordability will determine whether Webtone will succeed, said Mark
Quigley, a research associate with The Yankee Group in Canada based in
Brockville, Ont.
"In the past, any high-speed data solutions have fallen flat because prices have been
outside the range for most people."
However, in terms of the technology driving Webtone, Quigley says its sheer
breadth puts Nortel "on the right track" in becoming even more competitive.
"If you don't build up the backbone that this traffic is carried over, who cares if
you've got a 1 Mb modem? It doesn't make much difference if the throughput you
get is only 100K," he said.
"The fact they've recognized the actual data networks themselves and the Internet
backbone have to be pumped up makes sense before trying to sell products that
can provide all this throughput."
Nortel's engineers are doing this by increasing fibre-optic capacity by squeezing
more wavelengths on each fibre and creating higher line rates on each wavelength.
Already, through its Dense-Wavelength Division Multiplexing business and
Multi-wavelength Optical Repeater, Nortel has achieved 160 Gbps on a single
fibre, the highest available today.
Within three years, the goal is 1 trillion, or terabit-per-second, and as high as 20 Tb
on a single fibre in the future.
"We're now talking about petabits, or 1,000 million times a million," said Scott.
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