Oh, and believe me I'm not bitter at all about ALA and CSCO not doing business. Nothing could be further from the truth. I'm actually very happy CSCO decided to move down a different path. I don't see (honestly) ALA as a strong partner which will help CSCO in their quest to penetrate the carrier space in a more significant way.
Before you brush off Alcatel completely, just a few bits of information you may find of interest.
alcatel.com;
With 170 million installed telephone lines, Alcatel is the world leader in public transmission. In 1996, Alcatel installed 89 million new phone lines around the globe •Over one half of all the telecommunications satellites currently in orbit have been equipped by Alcatel •Sea We Me 3 is Alcatel's fibre optic cable group which in 1998 will run the 30,000 kms from Germany to Singapore to transport voice, data and images at a speed of 4x2.5 Gbits per second •Alcatel holds a 20% share of the corporate communications market and installed 3.3 million lines of its Alcatel 4000 series in 1996. •By the year 2000, 50% of mobile phones will use the GSM/DCS standard, developed in Europe.
In addition to the above statistics, Alcatel is the world leader in ADSL deployment and Cisco's relationship was partly based on this dominance.
alcatel.com;
Alcatel has a leading position for the supply of ADSL equipment on the world market. In recent months, Alcatel has delivered and installed its ADSL equipment at Ameritech, BellSouth, Pacific Bell and Southwestern Bell in the United States; Singapore Telecom; Bell Canada; and Belgacom, British Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, Telefonica (Spain), and Telia (Sweden) in Europe. Alcatel and Intel demonstrated at last Fall's Comdex show an ADSL modem prototype that connects to a personal computer's Universal Serial Bus (USB). Alcatel and Microsoft recently have published a paper about ADSL service issues and network protocols.
I wouldn't dismiss the DSL market as being unimportant.
Market statistics from the ADSL Forum website:
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Analysts Project the xDSL Market
Without the proverbial crystal ball, predicting the future is challenge. Although the ADSL Forum does not make projections for the ADSL market, industry analysts do make projections for the digital subscriber line market based on their research. Below are a few projections by third-party analysts unaffiliated with the ADSL Forum.
According to Ovum, "xDSL lines (worldwide). . . are predicted to grow from 7 million (in 1997) to 49 million by 2003." (Source: Global Technology Business, 2/98, p. 63.)
According to the Yankee Group, by 2002, more than 3.35 million U.S.homes will access the Internet through cable modems and 2.65 million through ADSL modems. (Source: Dow Jones News Wire Service, June 26, 1998.)
According to Frost & Sullivan, "xDSL technologies are emerging as the high speed, cost-effective delivery solution to meet the growing demand for Internet access, high-speed networking and other multimedia applications. The xDSL market...will experience a compound annual growth rate of about 36% from 1996-2003. In this same period revenues for xDSL equipment will grow almost nine-fold, from $200 million in 1996 to $1.7 billion in 2003." (Source: Comtex Newswire, 8/1/8/97.)
International Data Corp. projects that "ADSL will reach 4.2 million homes by 2002 (and) that in the next four years (these) 4.2 million ADSL access connections will account for 37.9 percent of total phone revenues from residential subscribers." (Source: COMTEX Newswire, May 28, 1998.) IDC "predicts about 2.5 million ADSL connections (in the US) by the end of 2001." (Source: Dow Jones wire report, 1/20/98) "By 2001, almost 15% of the 45-50 million U.S. households online will have Internet access at megabit speeds-with DSL and cable dominating the market." (IDC News Release, 12/97)
A Dataquest study forecasts that DSL devices will outsell cable modems substantially by 2000, with projected sales of 7.4 million DSL modems (assuming two modems per line) compared with 900,000 cable modems. (Source: Telephony, 2/3/97, p. 34.)
"A study by Business Research Group says 250,000 xDSL lines will be deployed by year's end (1998). And service rollouts are gaining momentum. . .35 percent of ISPs will deploy xDSL this year. And those ISPs will experience a 40 percent increase in revenue, thanks to the value-added services the technology will enable them to sell." (Source: Inter@ctive Week, ISP Supplement, April 27, 1998, p. S-22.)
According to Northern Business Information, "DSL data services should overtake...cable modem access by the middle of the next decade....The number of DSL lines deployed by U.S. service providers will grow rapidly, starting in the second half of 1998. DSL data services subscribership....will increase from virtually nothing today to more than 2.5 million by year-end 2001." (Source: Column by analyst Charles Carr, tele.com, 11/97, pp. 43 and 44.)
Although Forrester Research says that ADSL "has finally achieved technical maturity at an attractive price within the past year," and addresses new applications better than the alternatives, a recent report concludes "the market for ADSL will barely reach a quarter million circuits by 2001. Local telcos will be constrained by systems snafus, Telecom Act distractions and weak demand." (Source: Forrester Research Report, 4/97.)
xDSL technology will be critical to bringing high-speed services, such as Internet access and high-quality video, into offices around the world, according to Communications Industry Researchers. The firm predicts that the worldwide total of xDSL lines installed for business use worldwide will reach more than 5 billion in 2006. (Source: CIR news release, 8/27/97.)
According to TeleChoice, there could be as many as 150,000 ADSL lines installed by year-end 1998, 300,000 to 500,000 lines by year-end 1999, 900,000 lines by the end of the century and 1.2 million lines by 2001. (Source: America's Network, 5/1/98, p. 18. Note: TeleChoice is a member company of the ADSL Forum.)
The Information Network research firm projects that in North America during 1998, 26.4 million 56K modems will be sold, compared with 640,000 cable modems and 730,000 ADSL modems. Although 683,000 ISDN modems will be sold in 1998, ISDN growth will stall in the years ahead as cable and ADSL modems become more widespread. (Source: COMTEX Newswire, June 1, 1998)
Gartner Group projects DSL lines to increase more than 350% from 1997 to 2002. The firm says that DSL lines will increase from 1,500 in 1997, to 50,000 in 1998, 280,000 in 1999, 800,000 in 2000, 1.7 million in 2001 and reach 3 million in 2002. (Sources: Computerworld, 6/1/98, p. 41; and Telephony, 4/13/98, p. 28)
Market research firm In-Stat "forecasts that the first one-million-unit-per-year markets for (full-rate) ADSL will be China and Japan in 2000." ADSL-Lite, available the latter part of 1998, will be the first consumer-oriented digital telephone service to hit high volumes, well ahead of (full-rate) ADSL. In fact, the early success of ADSL-Lite will act to forestall deployment of (full-rate) ADSL in North America." (Source: In-Stat News Release, 2/6/98.)
In its forecast for the U.S. broadband local loop market in 2003, Allied Business Intelligence predicts that ADSL will capture 36% of the customer base, cable modems 26%, with satellite technologies and ISDN tied for 12%. (Source: Table published in X-Change, 4/98, p. 34)
Jupiter Communications estimates that cable companies will have deployed more than 6.7 million cable modems by the year 2002, compared with 3.4 million ADSL modems. (Source: The ZDNet News Channel, 1/26/98.)
Technology Futures Inc. predicts that "in seven years roughly 60% of U.S. households will have digital service of at least 1.5 Mbps available to them." (Source: America's Network, May 1, 1998, p.6)
According to Datamonitor, by the year 2000 "ADSL services will be used by more than 360,000 European businesses, generating more than $1 billion of revenue." (Source: Global Technology Business, July 1998, p. 59.)
Cable modem shipments in North America will increase from 484,000 units in 1998 to 787,000 units in 1999 and 886,000 in the year 2000. xDSL modem shipments are expected to increase from 127,000 units in 1998, to 221,000 units in 1999 and 506,000 units in 2000, according to a report by the Information Network. (Source: ISDN News via NewsEdge Corporation, July 15, 1998.)
The foregoing information was obtained or derived from third-party sources unaffiliated with the ADSL Forum, except where indicated. Use of the information is not intended to imply endorsement of sponsorship of the ADSL Forum or ADSL technology by any named individual or organization or endorsement of any such information or projection by the ADSL Forum or its members. The ADSL Forum makes no representation or warranty, expressed or implied, concerning the information, including, but not limited to its completeness, accuracy or applicability. The ADSL Forum assumes no liability of any kind of any errors in the information or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.
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Slice it any way you want, but losing Alcatel as a partner is not a coup for Cisco.
Just another opinion.
Pat |
