Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (6831)	4/17/2000 9:18:00 PM
From: MikeM54321	Respond to of 12823

Thread- Just a couple of notes from Texas Instruments' earnings CC about broadband access. It's another positive sign that access spending is for real and shows rapid growth. -MikeM(From Florida) __________________ April 17, 2000- ....In addition, net revenue grew to $2.65 billion from $2.08 billion during the 1999 quarter. "The first quarter was a good start for TI," Bill Aylesworth, chief financial officer, said in a conference call. "The top 5 reasons for that are we broke historical trends, our gross margin was up, broadband communication revenue more than doubled from the fourth quarter to the first quarter, we saw excellent growth in the products we sell to the mass market, and in February, we introduced the highest-performance and lowest-power DSPs." TI increased production of its digital signal processors for broadband applications during the quarter. Also in the first quarter, TI announced two new cores to enhance the DSPs. DSP revenue rose 50 percent from the year-ago period and 2 percent from the fourth quarter, breaking the seasonal trend of declining revenue from the last quarter of 1999 to the first quarter of 2000. Aylesworth also said the company remains on track to ship a million application digital subscriber line modem ports through the first half of 2000. TI said it is raising its capital-expenditure forecast to $2.5 billion, reflecting the belief that strong demand will continue for its digital signal processors and analog products. Within the semiconductor division, TI expects hard-disk drive revenue to decline sequentially but the loss should be offset by growth in revenue from wireless and broadband.

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (6831)	4/19/2000 12:18:00 PM
From: MikeM54321	Respond to of 12823

Re: Infrastructure Spending Stats: Charter, MCI/Worldcom, Qwest, GTE Thread- I was collecting a bunch of stats on how much SPs are planning on spending on telecom infrastructure. I'm collecting so many that I'm losing important ones. So I thought I would clear my folder and post these for now. A lot of the money below is going into broadband access. I'm guessing MCI/Worldcom's figure is so large because a lot of it will be for Last Mile spending. Mainly MMDS? But it's only a guess. I was hoping to break out the figures in better detail but don't have the time. Anyway IMHO the key word in all of them is, BILLION. -MikeM(From Florida) PS And these are just spending plans of four Service Providers(SP). Albeit these are substantial SPs, but they are only four of some 30,000 SPs worldwide...I forgot where that figure is too. I think it's 30,000 but could easily be wrong. ************************** "The nation's No. 4 cable systems operator Charter Communications Inc. said on Thursday it plans to spend about $5.6 billion** over three years on capital improvements and expects to continue to incur losses for the foreseeable future." biz.yahoo.com "Bernard J. Ebbers estimated his company may have to spend as much as $100 billion* over the next three years upgrading its network to handle an explosion in data and Internet traffic."* Message 13134431 "Our capital spending program for 2000 is expected to be approximately $3.3 billion. This increase over our previously announced $2.5 to $2.7 billion plan reflects time to market and growth opportunities for acceleration of our CyberCenter expansion and build-out of local broadband services." biz.yahoo.com "GTE's Board of Directors approved a significantly increased capital expenditure plan that will enable Genuity, formerly GTE Internetworking, to accelerate the build-out of its network infrastructure. The build-out will require capital expenditures of $1.8 billion to $2 billion in 2000, and $11 billion to $13 billion over five years." quote.bloomberg.com

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (6831)	5/12/2000 12:29:00 PM
From: MikeM54321	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 12823

Re: DSL Worldwide Stats- Virata's CEO Comments Thread- I've been reading a few figures about DSL rollouts that appear to be blowing past estimates I've been posting over the last six months or so. One of the companies I follow reported something like a million DSL lines have shipped just in Q1 alone. I have to see if I stumble across it again and will post the url if I do. I can't imagine this being accurate. Sometimes if you don't read the PR three times, a key word will slip by. I'm guessing this is what happened this time. If you link back to my "who wrote" above, Telechoice estimated US DSL lines to grow to 2.1 million by year end 2000. But if the numbers I seem to be reading are accurate, this will have to be adjusted dramatically upwards. ____________ In listening to the recently posted interview with Virata's(sym:VRTA) CEO, Charles Cotton, he stated a few numbers I thought I would record for future reference. Keep in mind, these are worldwide figures. Not just US stats: -800,000,000 copper loops in service today. -1,300,000,000 copper loops forecast by yr end 2002. -7,000,000 DSL lines installed today. For those that don't know, VRTA is a richly valued pure play DSL chipset company. I don't quite understand a statement their CEO made regarding VRTA's market share. But he said VRTA will have 50% of the DSL chipset market by year end 2000. I'm totally lost on that one because the market is too large for them to have that big of a piece of it? I'm assuming he must mean 50% of his particular, detailed description, of what VRTA produces. Anyway, what I thought of most interest was his worldwide legacy copper infrastructure stats. He said most of the future copper local loop growth is going to come out of Asia. -MikeM(From Florida)

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (6831)	5/19/2000 7:30:00 AM
From: MikeM54321	Respond to of 12823

Re: Broadband Stats- Cable Modem Shipments lml- Thanks for the link to the article in Cable Datacom. I like the figures so much, I want to archive them below. Q1 2000 Worldwide Stats -DOCSIS modems shipped: 570,000 -Proprietary modems shipped: 675,000 -Total: 1,245,000 North America -2.5 million installed to date -Adding 7,000/day I'm not sure if I buy the argument about cable modems being the problem with deployment. The vendors named are just a few of dozens of players in what I consider a commodity product. Maybe the problem is the transition from proprietary to DOCSIS modems. It could just be a technology change over lag. Not a supply problem per sey. Or maybe they are facing more of a threat from DSL than they imagined. Hopefully it's the former. Thanks. -MikeM(From Florida) __________________________ DOCSIS MODEM SHIPMENTS SURGE IN Q1 But Product Component Shortages Squeeze Vendors Seeking to Meet Increasing Market Demand MAY 01, 2000-- DOCSIS cable modem shipments surged in the first quarter of 2000, and for the first time, eclipsed shipments of proprietary products, according to CABLE DATACOM NEWS publisher Kinetic Strategies Inc. In total, North American DOCSIS modem shipments reached 570,000 units in Q1, up from 305,000 in the fourth quarter of 1999. Worldwide DOCSIS shipments surpassed 700,000 units, compared to approximately 675,000 proprietary modem shipments. However, DOCSIS vendors have become victims of their own success, as shortages of key components, such as tuners and flash memory, are forcing vendors to scramble to meet shipment commitments. Motorola Inc.'s acquisition of General Instrument has paid off handsomely in the DOCSIS market, as the company shipped a staggering 275,000 GI-developed DOCSIS modems worldwide in Q1, compared to only 215,000 of its industry-leading proprietary CyberSURFR cable modems. Motorola said 61 percent of its DOCSIS modems were shipped into the North American market, compared to 58 percent for CyberSURFR. Toshiba had a strong first quarter, shipping 122,000 DOCSIS units, up from 65,000 in Q4 1999, and Thomson's DOCSIS shipments reached 100,000 units in Q1. 3Com's sales gains did not keep pace with competitors, reaching 86,000 units in Q1. DOCSIS shipment increases in Q1 were driven by strong cable modem subscriber gains from Excite@Home and Road Runner. In total, North American MSOs now count more than 2.5 million installed cable modem customers and are installing an average of 7,000 new customers per day.

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (6831)	5/26/2000 4:02:00 PM
From: MikeM54321	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12823

Re: US DSL Players and Stats- SBC, USW, and GTE Thread- A heavily edited article on three big US SPs in the DSL game with some accompanying interesting stats. -MikeM(From Florida) ************************ SBC COMMUNICATIONS-- has the largest DSL deployment in the world, with more than 300,000 subs as of first quarter 2000. In early 1999, SBC announced it would increase its ADSL rollout in the Pacific Bell region to combat the rapid cable modem deployments in California. To accomplish that task, it promised to create more than 250 DSL-ready COs, covering 70 percent of the state. Then, in October 1999, SBC unveiled its Project Pronto. This ambitious $6 billion effort looks to establish a footprint of 77 million homes in the United States. If successful, that would mean 80 percent of SBC's Ameritech, Nevada Bell, PacBell, SNET and SWBell customers would have DSL access. To accomplish this formidable task, SBC will have to enable 25 million DSL lines in just three years. The first few months of the campaign didn't live up to expectations, however. The RBOC ended 1999 more than 30,000 customers short of its 200,000-subscriber goal. ______________________ US WEST-- which was the first RBOC to offer DSL service in 1998, reported more than 110,000 DSL subscribers by the end of 1999, an 88,000-sub increase over 1998. While US West doesn't lead in total subs, it has forged to the head of the line in self-installs. The company reports 93 percent of its customers self-install their DSL equipment. One of the most ambitious and most-watched DSL service rollouts is taking place in Phoenix, Ariz. That's where US West has gone all out to deploy VDSL service, which first began in June 1999. Its fiber-to-the-neighborhood technologies offers fully integrated digital video and high-speed data to residential and business customers. By putting fiber deeper into neighborhoods, the company reaches to within 4,000 feet of a customer's location. As a result, US West's VDSL technology delivers speeds up to 26 Mbps downstream and 3 Mbps upstream. In the neighborhood, signals are converted and transported via ATM and MPEG-2 technologies through the existing telephone wires in each home to interconnect individual TV sets, personal computers, telephones and audio equipment. The company's Choice TV and Choice Online products are compelling. The attractiveness of a VDSL offering is starting to increase among other RBOCs, says NextLevel's Klein. The RBOCs have a huge investment in their existing copper plant. And today they're getting $12 to $15 a month revenue for telephone service off the copper pair. If they can put VDSL on that existing copper pair and provide bundled voice, video and data, they have the opportunity to get $100 a month. Klein says the economics for deploying a VDSL system are becoming more compelling, as well. ?You can put in our system, which resembles a digital loop carrier system, for the same cost you would pay to put in a POTS-only system. And then you can provision it as you add the new services, and all you have is the incremental cost of the services. VDSL is no more expensive than ADSL to put in because you?re sharing the same infrastructure across the board.? _____________________ GTE-- meanwhile, started shipping a DSL self-install kit in its 17-state service area, where it currently has 75,000 DSL subscribers. The kit is designed to speed the installation of the telco-delivered broadband service so that the company can reach its goal of serving 200,000 DSL customers by the end of 2000. _______________________ RBOC COMPETITORS-- haven't been idle, either. NorthPoint, Rhythms and Covad have been aggressive in signing up DSL customers. The three combined now pass 20,000 homes and offices, and each plans to wire nearly half the U.S. this year. Covad, NorthPoint and Jato also joined forces with GTE to resell its service beyond its coverage area. This team effort will allow the company to offer a nationwide network to customers.

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (6831)	6/1/2000 3:11:00 PM
From: MikeM54321	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 12823

Re: US Broadband Stats: HFC Broadband Users Thread- Just a few figures pulled from a story off the HLIT thread. IMO the 2.5 million figure is definitely on the low side. And I believe the 200,000 cable telephony figure is close, but still low. And I've read numerous studies saying there are indeed, something in the order of 70 million US homes with cable TV. 70 million out of a estimated 100 million total US homes(includes apartments and condos, etc). -MikeM(From Florida) _________________________ Local demand for the Time Warner digital cable services seems to mirror a national trend. Michael Salerno, an analyst at Adams Media Research in Carmel Valley, Calif., said the nation has 2.5 million cable modems. Gary Arlen, an analyst at interactive services research firm Arlen Communications Inc. in Bethesda, Md., said there now are 3.5 million U.S. households getting digital cable TV and more than 200,000 getting cable-based local phone service, which is relatively new. But those digital service customers represent only a fraction of the 66.5 million U.S. homes that subscribe to cable TV services.

To: MikeM54321 who wrote (6831)	6/6/2000 9:09:00 AM
From: MikeM54321	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 12823

Re: Access Market Stats- Revenues from DSL and HFC Thread- A confusing article is posted at the bottom. I attempted to break out the stats in a more readable manner. Keep in mind, my interpretation could be wrong. Dell'Oro covers the actual revenue figures pulled out of 25 equipment vendors Q1 results. In other words, REAL stuff. All thrown under the blanket called, "Access Concentrators." It's getting hard to find any equipment that is not called an Access Concentrator.<g> Dell'Oro breaks it down into three main categories of Access Concentrators and they also toss in CPE for their overall figures/categories. At least I think they do. And all figures appear to be sequential figures. Not yr/yr: ___________ Modem/ISDN -Flat revenues but port shipments up 12% -Market to reach $3.9 billion by yr end 2000 HFC(coaxial cable) -Access Concentrator revs up 62% -CPE revs up 37% -Vendor Com21 up 40% -Vendor Terayon up 54% DSL(twisted copper) -Access Concentrator revs up 19% -CPE revs up 65% -Vendor Copper Mountain up 36% -Vendor Efficient up 137% -Vendor Westell up 113% -Overall Q1 Revenues grew 18% to $2.04 Billion ___________ The rankings are easy to read so I won't repeat here. The thing I find most interesting is how DSL modem growth(CPE) handily beats Cable Modem growth. YET the figures are flipped on the Access Concentrator side. So either the reporter got it mixed up, or it may show that the twisted pair world was just sitting and waiting(with installed empty DSLAM cabinets) for the cableco competition to force them to roll out DSL service ASAP. The second item of note is the apparent reduction in sequential revenues by Nortel and Alcatel(3Com doesn't surprise me). I have no idea of Nortel's accuracy because I don't follow it close enough. But Alcatel, which I follow closely, is a mystery to me. Alcatel clearly stated in their Q100 CC, that they showed 80% organic growth in the United States. Although this was yr/yr, you would still think it would translate to sequential growth. So I'm at a loss as to why they are down sequentially especially considering they dominate the DSL market in the United States. I don't particularly recall in the Q499 CC, any HUGE jump in that quarter revenues due to their DSL deployments. If the Dell'Oro figures are accurate, it does concern me. Alcatel did $138 mil in Access Concentrators in Q499. And Alcatel did $22 mil in DSL modems. Ken- Do you know if Nortel did in fact show a sequential decrease in Access Concentrator revenues? I can tell you that Nortel did $145 mil in Access Concentrators in Q499. And Nortel did $35 mil in Modems(which kind, I don't know?). -MikeM(From Florida) **************************** Access Market Continues to Climb According to Dell'Oro Group** Sales Levels in Excess of $2 Billion in 1Q00 PORTOLA VALLEY, Calif.- The Access Market continues to post record numbers in 1Q00 growing 18% Q/Q. Access Concentrator - Modem/ISDN revenue was flat Q/Q in 1Q00 due to price cuts, but port shipments increased 12%. Access Concentrator - Cable Modem and DSL continued to climb in revenue growing 62% and 19% respectively. On the Customer Premise side, the same growth could be seen for both Cable and DSL growing 37% and 65% respectively Q/Q. Despite flat revenue growth in 1Q00 in the Access Concentrator - Modem/ISDN market, Dell'Oro Group predicts that the Access Concentrator - Modem ISDN market will reach $3.9 Billion in 2000. "There are two factors that will drive the growth of Access Concentrators - Modem/ISDN over time", says Paul Baranello, an Analyst at Dell'Oro Group. "First, we believe that access to the Internet via modem is ubiquitous, and will continue to be popular with price-sensitive customers who may not yet be connected to the Internet. Second, these products have evolved to include modem and voice capabilities on the same port." In 1Q00 Lucent shipped the APX 8000 that offered this new capability. Both 3Com and Nortel have announced similar products and will likely begin shipping in 2H00. Other companies showing significant growth Q/Q in the Access market for 1Q00 were Com21 40%, Copper Mountain 36%, Efficient Networks 137%, Terayon 54%, and Westell 113%. 1Q00 Market Leaders - Access 1. Lucent + 18% 2. Cisco + 29% 3. 3Com + 7% 4. Nortel -19% 5. Alcatel -11% The Dell'Oro Group's Routers, Access & Voice report provides in-depth data and analysis on the following technologies: Legacy Routers (data capable), Voice & Data Routers, Access Concentrators (Modem/ISDN, Cable Modem and DSLAMs), and Customer Premise Equipment (Cable and DSL). The report tracks market shares for approximately 25 vendors in terms of revenues, units or ports shipped and ASPs.