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Technology Stocks : C-Cube -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stoctrash who wrote (37618)	12/3/1998 9:31:00 PM
From: Noel	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 50808

Fred, I just spent the last half hour writing an elegant response to your request only to lose it when I inadvertently clicked on a link in a recent email. So while much of my detailed explanation has evaporated (arrrgh!) and I am in no mood to rewrite it, here is the long and short of it: - Primetime 24 caused the recent industry problems by authorizing network feeds without checking to make sure that the subscriber could not receive over the air broadcast signals from local network affiliates. - DISH has put into place a stringent system of signal verification for questionable areas by requiring the customer have an off -air signal test to independently verify that locals cannot be received before turning on the satellite delivered network package. - DISH filed suit first, in Colorado, seeking clarification of their situation and seeking to invalidate the Longley-Rice wave propagation model (which dates back to the 50's) the broadcasters favor. Colorado is a particularly good example of the problems inherent in local broadcast reception due to its rugged terrain and the ghosting caused by reflections from the mountains. - The Broadcasters then sued DISH in Miami, a flat area with no such problems and notably distant from DISH's Colorado headquarters. Basically, the broadcasters have a good case on P24, but DISH has acted in good faith in this situation and can use the field signal test results to independently verify any questionable subscriptions. DISH's public statement on the suit can be found at: investor.msn.com A general story on the impact of local channel litigation on the industry and the growing support for a legislative solution can be found at: news-observer.com I hope this helps! Regards, NOEL

To: Stoctrash who wrote (37618)	12/3/1998 9:50:00 PM
From: Cameron Lang	Respond to of 50808

EchoStar Communications Corp. (DISH) 40 1/16 -1 7/16: CE Unterberg Towbin initiates coverage of satellite television services provider with "buy" and a $48 price target; subscriber base up 90.9% on a year-over-year basis, compared to 27.1% for the industry; strong marketing efforts have allowed company to grab 41% of net subscriber additions in the first ten months of the year; also News Corp. (NWS 26 1/2 -1) assets add value to DISH shareholders..... Also: Broadcom Corp. (BRCM) 96 +3 3/16: Needham & Co. initiates coverage of developer of highly integrated silicon solutions with "hold".....

To: Stoctrash who wrote (37618)	12/7/1998 9:14:00 AM
From: BillyG	Respond to of 50808

Avio Digital demos home network eet.com By Margaret Quan EE Times (12/04/98, 5:03 p.m. EDT) SAN CARLOS, Calif. — Avio Digital demonstrated a home networking technology called Media Wire at the Western Cable show in Anaheim, Calif., this week. While this is the latest company to introduce a phone-line-based home network at least one analyst says it has yet to be proved whether home owners need such networks. Bob Merritt, analyst at Semico Research (Phoenix), believes that where home networking is concerned, technology that isn't solving an immediate problem is a technology moving faster than the requirements. Though the need to send data between devices in the home is supported by the number of homes with more than one PC, Merritt said, the need to share high-bandwidth video and audio streams through the home has not yet been proved. Media Wire's technology enables transmission of CD-quality audio, DVD and HDTV video, telephony, computer data and home-control signals through the home. Avio Digital is a spin-off of Interval Research Corp (Palo Alto, Calif.), a company headed by Paul G. Allen, one of Microsoft's co-founders. At the Western show Avio Digital used a Scientific-Atlanta Explorer 2000 digital set-top box equipped with its node technology to send video and audio signals to various locations within the Scientific-Atlanta booth. Avio Digital claims MediaWire can send digital media, including DVD and HDTV, at speeds up to 88 Mbits/second and as far as 33 meters between network nodes. The company said the MediaWire network can support a total cable length of more than 4,000 meters. The 20-person San Carlos, Calif., startup is reluctant to detail the technology, describing MediaWire only as a "synchronous, media-centric network with tight tolerances on timing and low-cost nodes," making it suitable for sending digital video and audio through the average home, said Avio Digital's vice president of engineering Don Burtis. Avio Digital said MediaWire can handle four MPEG video channels (operating at 6 Mbits/s each), up to sixteen 24-bit audio channels streams, up to eight phone or ISDN lines simultaneously and still have more than 3 Mbits/second to send data through the home. While it can handle data, MediaWire is designed to be media-centric, rather than data-centric and synchronous rather than packet-based, said Avio Digital's Burtis. Avio Digital plans to license MediaWire to consumer electronics companies to embed in devices as well as to chip companies that want to manufacture the Avio Digital-designed ASICs that sit at the network nodes. The company anticipates MediaWire products will be available by late 1999 to early 2000. MediaWire seems to appeal to a broader market than some other home-networking technologies, Avio Digital's Burtis contends, because MediaWire is designed to run on category 3 phone wire, which is found in more homes than category 5 phone wire, the kind of wire required by high-speed digital interfaces. Avio Digital's base technology and the company itself is the result of three years of research and development by Avio's parent, Interval Research, which styles itself as something of a Xerox Parc for the '90s. Interval boasts such tech-savvy visionaries as president David Liddle and Arati Prabakar, former director of NIST, who is vice president of research. Avio Digital recently announced the arrival of Eugene Van Bergen, a Philips Business Electronics executive, as president and chief executive officer. Avio Digital is funded by seed investments from Vulcan Ventures Inc. (Bellevue, Wash.) and Interval, both owned by Allen. Interval has applied for patents on the home-networking technology, but they have not been granted yet, Burtis said.