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Technology Stocks : Westell WSTL -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bill c. who wrote (13542)	10/10/1998 9:26:00 AM
From: bill c.	Respond to of 21342

Samples priced to challenge DSP-based competition -- Alcatel Micro to unwrap two-chip ADSL set Loring Wirbel Framingham, Mass. - This week at DSLcon, Brussels-based Alcatel Microelectronics will show samples of its promised two-chip DynaMiTe MTK-20140 ADSL chip set, priced at $50 each in high volumes to challenge DSP-centric xDSL vendors like Texas Instruments Inc. and Analog Devices Inc. While Alcatel has been increasing U.S. market awareness of its merchant semiconductor offerings, both under its current name and its former Mietec logo, David Long, strategic marketing manager, said the Boston show represents the start of an effort to be treated seriously as a semiconductor player. Alcatel can leverage a lot of respect from its parent's position in DSL. The company's U.S. operation in Richardson, Texas, virtually defined the industry standard of DSL access multiplexer, by having its ATM-based design accepted by the Joint Procurement Committee of several U.S. regional carriers. Alcatel also played a key role in setting up an interoperability test lab with TI, ADI and Lucent Microelectronics. The recent acquisition of DSC Communications Inc. makes Alcatel's U.S. business exceed the size of that in any European country. The microelectronics group, meanwhile, has licensed its chip-set design to Advanced Micro Devices Inc., STMicroelectronics and Integrated Telecom Express Inc. But Long emphasized that only the previous generation of analog front end and discrete-multitone (DMT) modem within the three-chip MTK-20131 set had been licensed. The two-chip MTK-10140 set-consisting of the MT-10144 analog front end and MTK-10146 digital ADSL/ DMT/ATM controller-remains the sole property of Alcatel. Because Alcatel supports the Point-to-Point Protocol over asynchronous transfer mode as a subscriber interface, the digital chip in the new set retains an ATM segmentation/reassembly processor based on ARM, combining it with ADSL interface and DMT controller functions. The ATM interface is implemented using the Utopia physical-layer standard. Robert Bury, director of broadband marketing at Alcatel, said that the recent proposal by RedBack Networks Inc. and UUNet Technologies Inc. for a PPP-Over- Ethernet ADSL standard could be implemented in software using encapsulation methods. Alternatively, either PPP method could be used over the two alternative physical-layer interfaces Alcatel is considering for future chips-PCI or USB. The current chip set is applicable for subscriber modems and central-office DSLAMs, though Alcatel also is studying possible multichannel chip-set designs for central-office applications. One aspect that has changed since the initial three-chip set rolled is the cooling of interest in immediate "splitterless" G.lite implementations. Bury said that the new chip set meets ANSI T1.413 Issue 2 standards for ADSL, allowing upgrades for G.lite and G.DMT to be implemented in software. But the feeling in the industry a year ago that the bulk of subscriber modems would shift immediately to G.lite has diminished as carriers and OEMs discover the difficulty in removing splitters from the local-loop network. "Customers ask about full-rate ADSL first, then ask what our G.lite capabilities are," Bury said. techweb.com

To: bill c. who wrote (13542)	10/10/1998 12:43:00 PM
From: hal jordan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21342

Bill, I believe WSTL will have that functionality, eventually. However, that functionality will also have to be implemented in other networking devices in BEL's cloud, such as the Ascend 500 ATM switches. Therefore, this may take a while to implement. I have heard there are a number of vendors of BEL's short list. I am sure both WSTL and Pair are on that list. Now its up to BEL to declare the winners. I understand PAIR will be doing a huge Avidia demo at Interop this month. That will be interesting. Hal