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Technology Stocks : ANTEC Corp. (ANTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Arthur Tang who wrote (585)	8/12/2000 2:48:08 PM
From: Kenneth E. Phillipps	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 847

From Sounding Board Packet Telephony: Still Trying to Break Out Technical Challenges Slow Launches of Cable IP Voice and Voice Over DSL BY FRED DAWSON .... "Cable operators are impatient, but they acknowledged that there is more to the problem of getting to IP voice services than having access to a supply of DOCSIS 1.1 modems. "It's not that the technology doesn't work," says Steve Craddock, vice president for strategic planning at Comcast Corp. (www.comcast.com), which is testing IP voice services in Union, N.J. But there are several things that need to be accomplished before commercial launches become feasible, he says. "In our humble opinion, what's required for prime time is increased network availability, low-power [consuming] clients [modems], DOCSIS 1.1 and integrated support systems," Craddock says. "And if I want to do primary line, I have to add to that a full feature set." Such issues are key reasons why cable companies who are already in the voice business using proprietary circuit-switched cable-phone technology have been standing pat on their current platform strategies. Cox Communications Inc. (www.cox.com), for example, which now serves over 120,000 customers with first-line voice service using the circuit system supplied by Arris Interactive LLC, a joint venture of Nortel Networks Corp. (www.nortelnetworks.com) and ANTEC Corp. (www.antec.com), won't consider switching until several conditions, including those listed by Craddock, are met, says Alex Best, executive vice president of engineering at Cox. Moreover, he adds, IP voice has to match or beat his current costs, which come to about $650 to $700 per customer, not counting the costs of cable plant upgrades. "I'm prepared to switch when the technology enables me to provide lifeline phone service with all the CLASS features at a quality level equivalent to what I'm providing with circuit-switched telephony today," Best says." soundingboardmag.com