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Technology Stocks : Ascend Communications-News Only!!! (ASND) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gary Korn who wrote (945)	1/18/1998 1:37:00 PM
From: blankmind	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1629

It's already obsolete By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff, 01/15/98 f you can buy a piece of computer technology, it's already obsolete. The research labs constantly breed faster processors and bigger hard drives, which soon crawl onto retail shelves and begin devouring their slower, weaker ancestors. Next on the menu are the modems that seem so new and fast right now, the ones that'll handle up to 56,000 bits of data per second. These devices are already cheap, thanks to a dispute over compatibility that scared off buyers. But in a year or two, you may find free 56K modems inside cereal boxes. That's because 1998 is shaping up as the Year of ADSL, or asymmetric digital subscriber line, a technology that's been lurking in the labs for a decade or so. ADSL modems can download millions of data bits per second over a standard phone line. And there's no need for a second line in the home, because you can download and chat at the same time. Too bad ADSL has been too expensive and complicated for home use. But James Bender says that's about to change. Bender is chief executive of Aware Inc., a small company in Bedford that's one of the leaders in ADSL research. His firm is working on a type of ADSL modem nicknamed G.Lite that will sell for about $300 and will let you receive data from the 'Net at up to 1.5 million bits per second. Sending is slower - 512,000 bits per second. To get top speed, you must dwell no more than two miles from a telephone company switch. Aware says about 80 percent of American homes are inside this charmed circle. Bender says that in the next month or two, some major computer and telephone companies will announce a plan to make G.Lite an international data communications standard. ''Computer manufacturers will adopt G.Lite by Christmas 1998,'' Bender said. Look for built-in G.Lite modems in name-brand PCs, and expect telephone companies to offer ADSL Internet access to the home for $30 a month. Bender's being coy about which firms are joining this grand alliance. But according to Ann Jensen of the ADSL Forum, a leading industry group, Microsoft Corp., Intel Corp., and Compaq Computer Corp. are spearheading the effort. Jensen says these companies and other communications firms will meet in the next couple of weeks to hammer out details. ADSL is hardly new, but it's taken years to prepare it for the mass market. The telephone companies don't want a repeat of their fiasco with ISDN, an earlier hot prospect in digital communications that tops out at a measly 128,000 bits per second. The Internet boom spurred high demand for ISDN lines, which must be installed by a trained technician. Many phone companies couldn't keep up, and consumers suffered through bungled installations and intolerable delays. Traditional ADSL systems are also complicated beasts, requiring a ''splitter'' device to separate voice and data signals. That scared off the phone companies. Before they'd start deploying ADSL in a big way, somebody had to lick the installation problem. Which is exactly what Aware did late last year. The company's new ADSL devices work like a standard modem - just plug in the phone. ADSL will make all of us rethink the ways we communicate. There'll be no more busy signals, because ADSL sidesteps the traditional phone switch. You'd never disconnect an ADSL modem - it stays on line all the time. There'll be less reason to copy interesting files from the 'Net. You'll just bookmark the data, and return to the site at lightning speed whenever you want. Last month I described the Internet as your machine's ''I drive,'' a vast data storage device. With ADSL, your I drive will work almost as fast as your C drive. These days, a 1.5 megabit line to the Internet, called a ''T-1,'' costs about $1,000 a month. The phone companies will lose that lush market when ADSL rolls out. But so what? There are thousands of T-1 users, but there'll be millions of ADSLers - grandmas, gamers, home-office workers - who'll gladly pay $30 a month for T-1 speed. Indeed, Mr. and Mrs. America will soon be howling for more. Bender tells me he's got ADSL devices that run at 8 megabits per second. So if you buy an ADSL modem this Christmas, remember - it's already obsolete. Hiawatha Bray is a member of the Globe staff. You can send him electronic mail at bray@globe.com. This story ran on page D01 of the Boston Globe on 01/15/98. c Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company.