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Technology Stocks : COM21 (CMTO) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: pat mudge who wrote (1640)	1/31/2000 5:09:00 PM
From: Mark Laubach	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2347

I think it would be interesting to see a value add comparison. When the cable industry forces rock bottom pricing, attractiveness to the subscriber for purchase will be based in part on these value adds. Interesting to see CMTO up in volume and $'s while I type this in. The European community is making a renewed push to have cable modems built to the DAVIC/DVB standards (www.davic.org and www.dvb.org). In IEEE 802.14 from 1994 through 1996, there were constant discussions about DAVIC requirements vs 802.14 requirements and very intensely heated debates about the physical layer. In the first consensus round, IEEE 802.14 selected the DAVIC PHY specification ITU J.83 Annex A. However, in 1996 along came DOCSIS and in late 1996 grabbed vendor attention worldwide and leaving no vendors really paying attention to DAVIC. In 1997 and 1998, DOCSIS requirements pushed hard at IEEE 802.14, and I came up with modified PHY architecture that accepted either ITU J.83 Annex A/C (Europe) or B (US) so that IEEE 802.14 would remain "attractive" to North America operators. However, 802.14 died this past fall due to DOCSIS focus and DAVIC/DVB focus leaving 802.14 far too late for the market. About a year and a half ago roughly, several vendors in Europe banded together to start building DAVIC/DVB cable modems. CoCom was one of these companies. Cisco bought them. The European cable operators come mostly out of the telco community and they really love ATM systems. That's just one of the reasons Com21 does well there. DAVIC is also an ATM based system. DOCSIS is not an ATM based system, it's frame based. I feel that Europe is about two years behind the U.S. with regards to standards-to-products with DAVIC/DVB. During this window, any well working cable modem system is preferable. However vendors will have to come up with a DAVIC/DVB solution. You see this in Com21's product line now for this reason. One thing is very clear. The European ETSI group sets standards for operations that require digital downstream transmission to be ITU J.83 Annex A so as to be compatible with European digital video. It takes time to get everything Annex A. And, before you ask me again. The same issues apply with respect to proprietary vs standards (DAVIC/DVB) with respect to TERN, Com21, Motorola, and Arris modems. None of these will gracefully migrate. Ah yes, almost forgot to include this item. There is a EuroDOCSIS effort to make DOCSIS downstream run over ITU J.83 Annex A. I'm not sure of the status of effort at this time. By the way, I'm not ruling out a EuroDOCSIS dominance in Europe. It depends on the way it plays out, even with the renewed focus on DAVIC/DVB. Clearly, in about two years, anything has to use DVB PHY, be based on standards, and have multiple vendor interoperability. Mark