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

To: P.M.Freedman who wrote (1040)	1/23/1998 11:22:00 PM
From: blankmind	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1629

DSL: Faster than a speeding bullet, but by no means invincible story fromm msnbc THE RUSH OF ENTHUSIASM about digital subscriber line (DSL) technology was triggered by a New York Times report Tuesday that Compaq, Intel and Microsoft will team with most of the Bells and GTE to set technical standards for DSL modems and network equipment. (Microsoft is a partner in the joint venture that operates MSNBC). The as-yet unofficial consortium appeared to gain an important new recruit when reports surfaced later this week that Bell Atlantic plans to join the group, rather than abstain as initially expected. The reason for the excitement is speed: The DSL technology under development can transmit Internet pages to home PCs at speeds 30 times quicker than today's fastest modems. What's more, the article suggested that the technology may be commercially available soon; the group reportedly hopes to have DSL equipment on retail shelves by the time Santa Claus comes back to town in 1998. But before you trash your new 56k modem or cancel your order for cable modem service - last month's heavily hyped Web connection technology - consider some words of caution from a future member of the DSL coalition. "We don't want to mislead anybody to think that this Christmas they're definitely going to be able to go out" and obtain DSL equipment or sign up for DSL service, says Ed Reisner, executive director of operations for San Antonio-based SBC Corp. "It's still going to have some limiting factors." As Reisner and others familiar with DSL point out, residents that live a long way from their phone company's central office switches - meaning more than 18,000 feet away, by one measure - may encounter too much signal degradation to take advantage of DSL. Also, older phone lines and other infrastructure may require upgrades. "Unfortunately, even Intel, Compaq and Microsoft have to obey the laws of physics," says Charles Haas, vice president of marketing for Covad Communications, a San Francisco-based provider of DSL services to telecommuters and small business. "Long [phone] loops and old copper effect performance." The Big Three of the computer industry can help develop technologies to alleviate the distance and line-condition issues. They can also prod the phone companies and their vendors to start marching in step on DSL. Nobody has heard of DSL largely because the Bells and equipment makers have developed and deployed competing versions of DSL that do not talk to one another. The Bells actually have been working on DSL for several years. Indeed, technical standards already exist for DSL modems, Reisner says. But nobody has heard of DSL largely because the Bells and DSL equipment makers have ignored those standards and developed and deployed competing versions of DSL that do not talk to one another. Those differences have made it nearly impossible to reap economies of scale in either production or deployment of DSL services. That fact has helped keep DSL prices prohibitively high. Current monthly rates for DSL service range from $90 up to $250 a month, plus installation and equipment fees of around $150 and $200, respectively. High-speed Internet access over cable lines, by contrast, costs $40 to $50 a month plus $100 for installation. The computer industry is anxious to see DSL costs come down because they feel speedier connections will make consumers want to spend more time on the Internet - and more time on the Net means more demand for new hardware and software. Thus on the eve of a meeting in early December of an industry group called the ADSL Forum (ADSL is a popular version of DSL), Microsoft, Compaq and Intel sat down with their phone company counterparts to see what could be done to get DSL to market faster, according to a report in Tele.Com magazine. Those discussions appear to have led to the alliance that will be announced next week. Such pledges of support are no doubt important and welcome. Microsoft Senior Vice President Craig Mundie, for instance, told the ADSL Forum last month that all future versions of Windows will support ADSL technology. But the support is neither unequivocal nor exclusive. When Bill Gates declared last June that Microsoft would invest $1 billion in Comcast to boost high bandwidth services over cable, the Microsoft chief said, "We are also encouraging the phone companies to invest in their particular flavor of high-speed connections," such as ISDN and DSL. Similarly, when Compaq on Thursday said it is teaming with Ameritech to put DSL equipment in its Presario computers in locations where Ameritech offers DSL, spokesman Mike Berman said the decision in no way means Compaq believes DSL is superior to other forms of high bandwidth connectivity. "We think DSL is very important, but this is not to ignore other things that are going on," Berman says. "Whatever we can do to make the Internet better, faster, easier to us, we're going to do it."