Pat, I spoke with IR at PAIR twice this past summer and inquired about their DMT plans. I was told they have "ongoing" discussions with
Amati regarding licensing of Amati's patents. They never said they
would definetly license; however, IMO it was implied that they would.
In the past, PAIR has desired to control their destiny vis a vi designing their own DSPs, etc. (As has USRX) IMO, it will be harder to justify this pursuit with ADSL, the reason being that several large semis (i.e. MOT, ADI, TXN, ALA) have announced plans to build standard compliant chips. Why reinvent the wheel? I believe the big boys, especially USRX, ASND etc. will choose to focus instead on building
systems. (i.e. end to end solutions) IMO, PAIR will choose this route
as well and will likely buy compliant chips and add value outside the DSP.
Finally, with respect to licensing, some people have pointed out that
licensing may not be necessary both here and on the ORCTF thread. They specifically point to the ORCTF prospectus and Darby & Darby, ORCTF' intellectual property counsel, stating that Orckit's product does not infringe. There is however, no doubt in my mind that to do "standard compliant" DMT, licesning is needed. Indeed Orckit's prospectus says if the company fails to license its products "will not
include certain features of such standard that do not significantly affect performance, will not include certain optional features and may not achieve maximum performance capabilities."
The quesion is, is standards compliance important enough that the Bells will demand it? I think the answer to that is "yes", and I therefore, think the real players, of which PAIR is one, will indeed license in the end.
Cheers,
Daniel |
