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Technology Stocks : LAST MILE TECHNOLOGIES - Let's Discuss Them Here -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (6021)	11/19/1999 5:12:00 AM
From: Scott Zion	Respond to of 12823

I apologize if this has already been posted. multichannel.com AT&T Outlines Set-Top, IP Strategies By BILL MENEZES November 15, 1999 Englewood, Colo. -- AT&T Broadband & Internet Services will soon pick a second supplier of advanced digital set-top boxes as it aims for retail availability of the devices by next Christmas. At a Veterans Day briefing to reporters in AT&T Broadband's headquarters here, the MSO also disclosed a midcourse change in the technology it is deploying to provide telephony over cable, which could yield significant cost savings and possibly speed its timetable for migrating from circuit-switched to packet-switched service. The news came from acting CEO Dan Somers and key executives leading AT&T Broadband's rollout of advanced broadband services, which will eventually complement digital video with Internet access over TV, cable telephony and a variety of interactive functions such as chat, gaming and electronic commerce. AT&T Broadband already has a commitment -- made by Tele-Communications Inc. before it merged with AT&T Corp. earlier this year -- to buy 5 million "DCT-5000" advanced digital set-tops from General Instrument Corp. Those set-tops will eventually replace the roughly 2 million "DCT-1000" and "DCT-2000" digital boxes AT&T Broadband has already deployed -- as well as those being issued to the roughly 2,500 new digital subscribers it is adding daily -- using the DCT-5000's PC-like architecture to support the new advanced services. AT&T Broadband expects to ramp up commercial deployment of the DCT-5000 in the second quarter -- with 500,000 units to be deployed next year and more than 1 million annually after that -- as the MSO aims for 70 percent digital penetration of its existing subscriber base in the next three to five years, according to Dave Rudnick, vice president of content and acquisition management at AT&T's National Digital Television Center. The DCT-1000s and DCT-2000s swapped out for DCT-5000s will count toward the 5 million quota with GI, creating more leeway for AT&T Broadband to offer set-tops from another vendor. Somers and others said the company is examining boxes from a variety of other undisclosed vendors that responded to a request for proposals in order to create a secondary source of advanced set-tops intended primarily to create a significant retail presence targeted for next Christmas. Somers said only that AT&T Broadband would decide on its secondary vendor "soon," so that it would have enough time to complete development and integration of its desired operating software and applications. Rudnick said the current software platform planned for the DCT-5000 includes Microsoft Corp.'s "Windows CE" operating system, Sun Microsystems Inc.'s "Java Virtual Machine" language, TV Guide Inc.'s electronic program guide and navigation software developed by Excite@Home Corp. to create a user-interface "shell" developed specifically for AT&T Broadband. On the telephony front, AT&T Broadband outlined a plan that relies more heavily than expected on circuit-switched technology for its migration to the more bandwidth-efficient Internet-protocol-telephony platform, but that could yield greater cost efficiencies. The key to the plan -- which AT&T CEO C. Michael Armstrong signed off on last week -- is to install at customer premises so-called broadband-telecom interfaces that will forestall the need for the company to move advanced calling features -- like call waiting or "star-69" callback -- from existing circuit switches to expensive IP routers. AT&T Broadband chief operating officer for telephony operations Curt Hockemeier said technicians determined that manufacturing those features into routers would be the most time-consuming element of the transition from circuit switches, delaying the move to IP. At the same time, prices of circuit-switched network-interface equipment connecting customers' home or office phone wiring with the cable network have dropped faster than expected, actually becoming cheaper than IP-network interfaces, Hockemeier said. Using the BTIs, AT&T Broadband can keep the advanced calling features in circuit switches located in telco central offices and put a call agent in the cable headend that makes those features available through the BTI, he added. The BTIs installed on the outside of customers' buildings also have integrated DOCSIS (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification) standards-based modems, creating economies of scale that AT&T Broadband would not get by selling or deploying telephony and data gear separately, he said. Although he did not quantify total potential cost savings, Hockemeier said BTIs from GI would cost less than $300 apiece in volume, with deployments beginning as early as the third quarter of next year. He also acknowledged that the cost savings will be greater when the change is eventually made from switches to routers, but the BTI plan has more immediate capital and time-to-market advantages. Hockemeier added that AT&T Broadband has seven trials under way for telephone service over its hybrid fiber-coaxial plant, with an expected launch in Portland, Ore., by year-end making it the eighth trial the company had promised to begin this year. The others are in metropolitan Chicago, Denver, Dallas, Pittsburgh, the San Francisco Bay area, Seattle and Salt Lake City. Executives said AT&T Broadband was not having material discussions with Time Warner Inc. about a telephony affiliation due to AT&T's pending acquisition of MediaOne Group Inc., although talks are ongoing with Cablevision Systems Corp., Insight Communications Co. Inc. and Comcast Corp. Somers would not discuss any details of the talks, but said he was sure that deals would be reached with a number of strategic partners, including Time Warner. He would not put a time frame on completion. "Trying to find the right relationship, scope, how it works takes time," he said. "I don't think it's the end of the day if it's not done next week."