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Technology Stocks : Voice-on-the-net (VON), VoIP, Internet (IP) Telephony -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stephen B. Temple who wrote (2061)	12/8/1998 8:38:00 PM
From: Stephen B. Temple	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3178

Motorola, Nortel extend cable systems with voice over IP December 8, 1998 InfoWorld: Motorola and Nortel Networks last week unveiled solutions for taking cable beyond television, enabling offerings such as voice over IP (VOIP). The moves were viewed by industry observers as gradually bringing multiservice cable into reality. VOIP using cable is part of Motorola's announcement of an IP telephony architecture. This multimedia platform will allow for multiple networks -- including wired, wireless, satellite, paging, and cable -- to communicate with each other over IP, and enable users to make IP telephony calls over any of the multiple networks. Using technologies from Motorola's Internet and Networking Group and from NetSpeak, Motorola is offering a VOIP/cable modem one-box solution that includes components from Motorola's Vanguard VOIP gateway and Motorola's Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification 1.0 cable modem. The solution, called Multimedia Terminal Adapter (MTA-1), will run on a hybrid fiber coaxial cable network and allow a user to attach a conventional phone to the adapter using a phone jack. The MTA-1 will be available in mid-1999. Pricing is not yet available. Meanwhile, Nortel Networks announced Unified Networks for Cable Systems, a broadband networking solution that will allow cable TV operators to offer voice, video, and IP data to their customers in an integrated package. Nortel officials explained that the integrated transport network structure will be broken down into four elements: optical networks, broadband cable access, IP switched networks, and integrated network management. Analysts said they were encouraged by Nortel's and Motorola's incremental advancements in cable systems technology. "[The] bottom line is cable has more capacity than traditional lines, " said Hilary Mine, an analyst at Probe Research, in Cedar Knolls, N.J. "Anything you can do over copper, you can do over fiber coax." "What we're seeing on the cable modem side is the same as on the DSL [Digital Subscriber Line] side, this is more integration of higher-level functionalities," said Daniel Briere, president of TeleChoice, in Boston. But Mine also pointed out there are business issues such as whether people will trust a cable company as much as a phone company. "An installer will have to go out and install a cable box with other stuff with it, and when you have a technician that knows what they're doing, it's great, but there's probably a 1 percent probability of that," Mine said. Motorola Inc., in Schaumberg, Ill., is at www.mot.com. Nortel Networks, in Brampton, Ontario, is at www.nortelnetworks.com. Nortel Networks' Unified Networks for Cable Systems Optical networks: OC-192 and OC-48 Synchronous Optical Network (SONet) elements for high-capacity transport of video, IP data, and telephony services. Broadband cable access: Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification- capable cable modem and Nortel Networks' CMTS1000 cable modem termination system. IP switched network: IP data traffic routed by Nortel Networks' Accelar routing switch and interWAN solution over the SONet. Integrated network management: Manages multivendor and multitechnology networks. [Copyright 1998, InfoWorld]

To: Stephen B. Temple who wrote (2061)	12/8/1998 8:41:00 PM
From: Stephen B. Temple	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3178

Cable net services need work December 8, 1998 Network World: Anaheim, Calif. The cable TV industry has a long way to go before it can deliver broadband data services as widely and reliably as traditional data carriers do. A standard for cable modems is helping, but other issues, such as the inability of most current cable networks to support two-way da ta, are slowing the deployment of what could be an economical way to support telecommuters, according to experts at the Western Cabl e Show. Cable modems have the potential to carry data at multimegabit speeds from homes to cable switching centers where the traffic can be dropped onto the Internet. Using encryption, the remote user can create a secure Internet link to a corporate Web site to gain acces s to the company LAN. Technology demonstrated at the show supports IP telephony over cable networks, and that could be used to extend the functions of cor porate PBXs from company headquarters to phones in employees' homes. Because many cable providers are trying to sell the service to residential Internet users, the price of cable modem Internet access is low, about $40 per month. But the recently adopted cable standard, known as data over cable service interface specification (DOCSIS), is still being implement ed by modem makers. Certified interoperability among vendors' DOCSIS modems is expected by year-end. Standard modems DOCSIS will make it possible for customers to buy standard modems themselves rather than relying on the service provider to supply a proprietary modem. Shifting ownership of the customer modem reduces costs for cable providers and makes offering the service more attractive, according to Tom Hagopian, vice president of service provider Cablevision. DOCSIS has been a long time coming. "Seven years ago, I first got involved in discussions about cable modems, and we still haven't r eached a million customers," says Avram Miller, director of business development for Intel. "We need to spend some time wondering wh ether we could do better." In addition, cable networks are plagued by other problems. Most of the existing networks still do not support two-way traffic on the cable, a requirement for broadband data exchange that could support Internet access and Internet virtual private networks between t elecommuters and corporate sites. Two-way cable networks require expensive upgrades to the cable as well as hardware to transmit the data. IP telephony over cable is also attractive to corporate users, but it is in its infancy. Potentially, IP telephony represents a way to extend corporate PBXs to remote users. At the Western Cable Show, major network vendors, including Cisco, 3Com and Lucent, showe d IP telephony capability using some of their gear in conjunction with other vendors' equipment. But they were generally kluged conf igurations, not carrier-class systems. Adding to the problem is the fact that cable operators are focused on providing television, not on providing data and telephony serv ices. Therefore, they are more reluctant to sink money into those areas. "Telephony and Internet access were incremental businesses, and, quite frankly, are still not core businesses of the cable industry," says Mario Vecchi, vice president of broadband developmen t for America Online. As a result, many cable providers that are dabbling in data over their networks use dial-up modems as the return path for high-speed Internet access over the cable network. "That has limited WebTV so far," says Alan Yates, director of digital television platformin g marketing for Microsoft. WebTV, which brings Internet access over cable TV sets, could benefit from that path to support interacti ve television shows and advertising, he says. A panel of Silicon Valley executives told a Western Show audience that cable providers face competition from digital subscriber line (DSL) and satellite technologies, both of which can support broadband Internet access to the home. But the battle has not been as fierce as it could be, according to Miller. "The phone companies aren't investing heavily in DSL," Miller says. Unfortunately for corporate users, critical cable network upgrades may rely on the popularity of cable Internet access among general consumers. Their demand for services will drive network improvements, Vecchi says. <<Network World -- 12-07-98, p. 12>> [Copyright 1998, Network World]

To: Stephen B. Temple who wrote (2061)	12/8/1998 9:02:00 PM
From: Stephen B. Temple	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3178

Update - BOCs, Computer Firms Seek ADSL Deregulation December 8, 1998 WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A.: (Note: Adds response from MCI-WorldCom) Representatives from a cross-section of baby Bell local telephone service providers and computer companies today said they would ask the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to ease restrictions that prevent local phone companies from offering high speed digital subscriber line services for Internet access. In a press conference this morning at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., representatives from BellSouth Corp., Intel Corp. [NASDAQ:INTC] and Compaq Computer Corp. [NYSE:CPQ] announced their intention to ask the FCC to permit local phone companies to offer advanced digital subscriber line (ADSL) services on an inter-LATA (local access transport area) basis. Other companies involved in the petition include Ameritech Corp., Bell Atlantic Corp., GTE, US West, SBC Communications, Gateway2000 Inc. and Microsoft Corp. [NASDAQ:MSFT]. The FCC has established local access transport areas, which are larger zones than area code districts, in which local phone companies can provide many of their services. Attempts up until now to offer inter-LATA services have been rejected by the FCC because, under the rules of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, local phone companies have been ordered to make their networks accessible to long distance phone companies. For the most part, this has not happened, and long distance phone companies so far have decried today's submission to the FCC as an attempt to "make an end-run" around the Telecom Act's rules. The local phone companies say that evidence of the growing amount of electronic commerce conducted online, along with the increasing number of Internet users in the US, proves that more high-speed Internet access is necessary to sustain the heavy consumer use of Internet services. William Reddersen, BellSouth's group president of value-added services, said the FCC's current policy of refusal to allow local phone companies to provide high-speed, high-bandwidth inter-LATA ADSL services is "heavy-handed regulation, the type that discourages investment and deployment of new services." Reddersen added that local phone companies are deploying ADSL services in approximately 80 US markets at this time, saying that they are making these investments "despite...even more restrictive regulatory rules." He added that the local providers, along with high-tech companies, will not be able to fully invest in these services if the regulations are not removed. That, he said, would translate into slower and lengthier waits for users trying to conduct business or buy things online, which in turn would prevent electronic commerce in the US from achieving its full monetary potential. Compaq Vice President of Advanced Consumer Products Trey Smith said that the telecommunications industry is ready to pour lots of money into high-speed services, but that "the regulatory environment up until now has not encouraged that type of investment." Ted Jenkins, Intel vice president of corporate licensing and chairman of Intel's government affairs, said the FCC's restrictions will "hurt the economy in general." The local phone providers have said that they would be willing to open up their networks to long distance providers in exchange for being allowed to provide what amounts to long distance ADSL access. One proposal currently before the FCC would allow the local phone providers to do this if these high-speed data services were operated in separate subsidiaries. Some baby Bells (known formally as Bell operating companies -- BOCs) have complained that the costs associated with forming these subsidiaries would allow them only to serve wealthy business customers, rather than most residential customers. Telecommunications industry analyst Jeffrey Kagan said that these baby Bells inevitably will provide these advanced services. "With every year that ticks by, it becomes more urgent, or they risk getting left behind in the dust, which is not in anyone's best interest except their competitors," Kagan said. "The trick is to let them build and deliver these services without taking the steam away from opening local markets. That's a tough balancing act for the FCC, but one which is worth pursuing." An MCI-WorldCom source told Newsbytes that, although the local phone companies are asking for the exceptions only for data access, it makes no difference whether the communications are voice or data. Furthermore, the source added, many analysts predict that voice communications will comprise only a small percentage of total traffic on the network. Therefore the FCC's acceptance of today's petition would allow local phone companies to break into long distance markets without satisfying any of the Telecommunications Act's requirements for them to open up their own markets. MCI-WorldCom Chief Policy Counsel Jonathan Sallet said in a statement that "In this holiday season, consumers should beware of ILECs (incumbent local exchange carriers - the baby Bells and other established local phone service providers) bearing 'gifts' - in this case, a typical monopoly ploy to extend bottleneck control of voice services to the Internet." "In exchange for 'promising' to do some of what the Telecom Act already requires them to do, these phone monopolies ask that they be excused from complying with many of the law's other pro- competitive requirements," Sallet said. "Once excused, they then 'promise' to upgrade their facilities and open the local loop to competition and innovation... This proposed cozy inside deal would do nothing more than allow the BOCs and GTE to build a digital monopoly by closing down competitors' access to the local loop. We urge the FCC to reject this unlawful, disingenuous and dangerous plan."

To: Stephen B. Temple who wrote (2061)	12/8/1998 9:17:00 PM
From: Stephen B. Temple	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3178

Giving VARs an edge in CTI -- Distributors Beef Up Line Cards, Expand Support Offerings December 8, 1998 COMPUTER RESELLER NEWS via NewsEdge Corporation : New York -- As the computer-telephone integration (CTI) market emerges and open standards for computer-based telephony continue to evolve, distributors are working toward creating line cards and support programs to help resellers cash in on the market's double-digit profit potential. "As CTI technology evolves, so do the opportunities," said Joe Serra, director of computer telephony at Tech Data Corp., Clearwater, Fla. "We are consultative in helping resellers understand the opportunity from a growth perspective and in meeting demands of the end-user community." Over the past year, Tech Data added 31 new telephony product manufacturers to its product roster, including Siemens AG, Comdial Corp., Northern Telecom Ltd., Brooktrout Technology Inc., Dialogic Corp. and Micom Communications Corp., a Nortel company, according to Tech Data officials. To educate VARs, many distributors offer road-show training programs to help resellers define the opportunities in the CTI market and to understand the available software and hardware. "We have heard loud and clear from resellers that what they need in this area is training," said Carl Glick, director of network and communications at Merisel Inc., El Segundo, Calif. To meet this need, Merisel expects to launch a CTI program next quarter. The program, which will be aimed at small and midsize resellers, will include Web-based training opportunities for resellers, as well as instructor-led training in various cities around the country, Glick said. Next year Tech Data will host a nine-city road show focused on CTI technology, as well as providing telephony information at Tech Data Expos. Catalyst Telecomm/CTI Authority, the computer telephony division of Greenville, S.C.-based ScanSource Inc., designed its TechTeach road show to educate resellers about CTI as well as to recruit them to the technology, said Michael Stahl, company founder and vice president. The program includes half-day seminars and a mini trade fair. In addition, many distributors are upping their presence at trade shows and CTI-specific industry events. Some resellers, however, question the depth of knowledge that distributors can bring to this new market. "Distributors often don't have the depth of knowledge to be able to help us," said Michael Carpenter, president of CT Pioneers, a consortium of VARs that focuses on computer telephony. Resellers definitely are looking for strong presales support from distributors-and distributor executives said they are working to increase their ability to help resellers choose the right solutions. In fact, executives at Santa Ana, Calif.-based Ingram Micro Inc. estimate that roughly 70 percent of its total 7,000 technical support calls a day are for some sort of presales advice. As equipment floods the marketplace, choosing products that work well together to meet a certain set of requirements can be confusing. "Our experience is that VARs don't need us calling to sell something, " said Tech Data's Serra. "They need someone to work with them to look at opportunities, develop a strategy, make product recommendations and help them meet end-user requirements." In response, distributors are adding salespeople trained in helping VARs wade through customers' CTI requirements, then translate those needs into a product-specific solution. "We have partnered with several leading brand-name companies to get VARs into the computer telephony business," said Laura Skinner, vice president and general manager of the Telecomm Integration Division at Ingram Micro. "Through our technical support group, we can help recommend solutions to help resellers get their arms around the CTI business." In addition, distributors are offering "soft bundles" of hardware and software that are tested to work together. These programs let resellers claim the profit inherent in systems integration work, while allowing distributors to figure out which products work well together to meet specific needs, according to distribution executives. "Resellers want to know that the products will work together, but don't necessarily want us to do the integration for them," said Skinner. HAILEY LYNNE McKEEFRY is a freelance writer based in New York. Copyright c 1998 CMP Media Inc. By Hailey Lynne McKeefry <<COMPUTER RESELLER NEWS -- 12-07-98, p. PG185>> [Copyright 1998, CMP Publications]

To: Stephen B. Temple who wrote (2061)	12/8/1998 9:34:00 PM
From: Stephen B. Temple	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3178

IETF group may be headed back to the drawing board By Sandra Gittlen Network World, 12/08/98 Orlando - A proposed Internet standards group for network access issues may be doomed before it even gets started. The Internet Engineering Task Force, which decides on standards for the Internet, met yesterday at its triennial gathering to discuss the viability of a group to study approaches to authentication, authorization and accounting. The group, co-chaired by IETF head Fred Baker, set out to build a standard framework that would let servers answer three questions: How do I know that you are who you say you are? What can you do once you have access? What did you do so that I can bill you for it? But rather than discussing in detail how the group would develop the architecture that could answer these questions, the session derailed into a talk about choosing the transport mechanism for the new protocol: TCP, UDP or a new transport protocol. One attendee said contemplating the transport protocol was duplicating efforts being done in other sessions this week. Another participant criticized co-chairs Sue Hares of Merit Network and Baker for not developing a clear charter. This participant said that the proposed group is a solution in search of a problem. Hares said the group would work on developing a clear charter and submit it to the group's mailing list for approval. According to IETF bylaws, if the charter does not meet approval, then the proposed working group would be scratched.