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

To: The Phoenix who wrote (54442)	9/18/1998 1:50:00 PM
From: gbh	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 61433

OG, I'm not sure a lead at this point in the game for cable and xDSL means very much since both of these delivery mechanisms are still in the embryonic stage. I think the lead you refer to is just that CSCO has made "strategic" purchases in both these areas. As far as deployments go, I have not seen any meaningful data yet. But I expect ASND to be a significant player in DSL. Not sure of their interest in cable. I don't think either cable or DSL will "win". Rather they will both play significant roles. As the world moves towards IP over WDM the core products at ASND will become less critical in most traditional environments. HOwever, in ATM and Frame Relay delivery ASDN will apparently continue to rule. These longer term, strategic issues, are just the reason why ASND needs to be part of a bigger, more broadly diversified company such as LU. They simply can't focus on all these areas, like CSCO, and keep their eye on the current set of objectives. But IP over WDM is way off. Miss CSCO herself, Judy Estrin, says, Q. Do you see any particular technology winning out in the Internet core, either ATM or packet-over-Wave Division Multiplexing? A. I think what you will see is IP everywhere at the desktop, no question about that. I think in the core you're going to see combinations of ATM and IP. I think there initially will be IP over ATM. Then you're going to see IP directly on SONET, and then eventually IP directly on WDM. But I think for a very long time you're going to also see some set of applications that will continue to run over ATM over SONET and ATM over WDM. I don't believe that ATM will go away in the foreseeable future. So you'll really see ATM and IP needing to sit side-by-side. I think the one thing that is absolutely clear is ATM is not a desktop architecture, that ATM will be part of the core. Taken from an article at nwfusion.com Gary