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

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (2160)	6/5/2000 8:20:00 AM
From: rod runyan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2347

Com21 Launches Broadband Telephony Interface 'BTI' for the Home; DOXgate to Integrate Voice with High-Speed Internet Access ================================================================ LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 5, 2000--Com21, Inc. (NASDAQ:CMTO), a leading global provider of system solutions for the broadband access market, announced today the launch of its new DOXgate(TM) product, a communications gateway to the home. The DOXgate will be deployed on a home's exterior wall and will provide a platform for delivery of voice, data, and video over hybrid fiber/coaxial (HFC) lines. "Cable operators recognize the cost-effectiveness of deploying an exterior unit," noted Ehsan Rashid, general manager of Com21's Network Interface Business Unit. "With the DOXgate, cable operators will benefit because they can reduce costs by consolidating multiple premise devices into one Broadband Telephony Interface (BTI) and minimize truck rolls by using the remote service diagnostics. The DOXgate allows cable operators to offer voice services along with data, and is upgradeable as future services are developed. Driven by the cable operators' desire to offer voice and other enhanced services, there is an emerging trend in the way customer premise equipment is deployed." Rashid added, "Com21 wants to be at the leading edge of the technology." Com21 CEO and President Peter Fenner agreed. "The DOXgate is just one more step in the direction of fully integrated services. It will deliver communication, entertainment, and information services at a single point to the subscriber's home, making the networking experience virtually transparent to the user." The DOXgate will be deployed on a home's exterior wall, an interface device that enables high-speed communications between the broadband access network and the customer premise network. Contained in a weatherproof, lockable exterior box, the unit is equipped with a DOCSIS cable modem, 10/100BaseT connectors for Ethernet, RJ11 for HPNA, and RJ11 for telephony, and supports up to four toll-quality voice lines. The DOXgate is expected to begin shipping in the first quarter of 2001, and will be hardware and software upgradeable as additional services, such as utility services and home automation, become available.

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (2160)	6/5/2000 10:01:00 AM
From: Mark Laubach	Respond to of 2347

These are my own ideas. The entire cable industry is built around the analog RF model for signal distribution. I think it will be awhile before it could convert to all digital. The first convergence I see as a possibility is the conversion of analog NTSC programming to MPEG2 programming and then signal distribution within a headend converted to digital. The over the cable will still be analog RF, but carrying digital information. One question I have it where the tuner or virtual tuner will move to as part of the evolution. If it stays in the home, then an all digital equivalent of the coaxial network delivered over fiber will need to process just under 6 Gbps in the "set top box". Call it 10Gbps to round it off. I get that number by taking the current best downstream cable bandwidth of 810 Mhz, slicing into 135 channels of 6 MHz and multiplying by 42 Mbps for 256 QAM. If the tuner moves up in the network, then the bits to the home rate drops significantly but the switching infrastructure increases dramatically and we're back to the VOD Level 1 and Level 2 gateway architecture - which turned out to be too expensive. Another approach would be to move the transport to an IP infrastructure and do things in more or less following the Internet protocol model for making connections to servers or to join/leave multicast groups. I know that folks who come from an Internet background can see this as the path. The cable industry however, has its roots in the analog RF and MPEG world and is slow to change. Btw, I haven't looked at PON for awhile now or where the FTTH world has gone too. I would have to study up just a little bit to make accurate comment. With regards to analog rf and cmts's. It would be somewhat more straightforward on the downstream to remove the rf front end and connect what's left to an MPEG2 switch, since DOCSIS uses MPEG2 transport stream framing. At some point, this would get converted to RF before hitting the subscriber and would be transparent to cable modems (in theory). Upstream is a different beast and does not have a simple conversion from analog burst modulation to an all digital link. These are just thoughts. Mark

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (2160)	6/5/2000 10:11:00 AM
From: Mark Laubach	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 2347

With regards to 64Kbps PCM encoding. It has several benefits which include complete toll quality and handling of all legacy modems and FAX, it is a constant bit rate data stream which is real easy to schedule in the upstream. You just know it is going to work. I agree that there are codec's now that support varying degress of compression so as to make more efficient use of the upstream bandwidth. However, the more the signal is compressed, the more bursty the packets become due to the size and temporal varying of silence intervals. CBR no longer is appropriate for scheduling. My own belief is that there may have to be some over scheduling to compensate for not incurring too many round trip times for scheduling bursty arrivals, which would take back some of the efficiency gains. I'm waiting to see what happens as the industry gains experience. I could be off on this, but I am suspicious, especially on moderately loaded upstream channels. For now, 64Kbps PCM works. Compression is definitely on the way (in the industry). I just don't have numbers that tell me what the real gains and quality tradeoffs are for the various levels of compression. Mark