Broadband Struggles With Cost And Quality
techweb.com
(12/11/98, 4:22 p.m. ET)
By Mark LaPedus, Electronic Buyers' News
Despite the hype surrounding broadband chips and
equipment, overall demand for these services in the
consumer space will remain sluggish for at least another
year, according to analysts.
Both cable-modem and xDSL services are still
grappling with quality and cost issues as well as technical
glitches, which will keep analog modems alive for some
time, according to analyst Nicholas Lippis of Strategic
Networks, a market research company in Needham,
Mass.
As a result, cable modems and xDSL technologies won't
begin to make noticeable inroads until 2000, Lippis said.
"By 2001, cable modems will emerge as the dominant
Internet-access technology," he said.
The deployment of xDSL services is much slower than
people expected, said Claudia Bacco, an analyst at
Boston-based TeleChoice, at this week's Loop '98 trade
show in Santa Clara, Calif. "1999 could be the year for
xDSL, but that's what they said about '98," she said.
Among the possible drivers for xDSL services next year
are two large phone carriers: MCI and US Sprint. While
most carriers are dragging their feet in deploying xDSL
services, those two companies recently set plans to
deploy xDSL services next year, and are evaluating
products from OEMs and chip makers, sources said.
But many OEMs remain pessimistic about deployment of
the new G.Lite standard, a technology that's supposed to
deliver data at 1.5 megabits per second, or 25 times the
speed of today's V.90-compliant analog modems.
Besides Compaq, which recently announced the world's
first G.Lite-enabled PC, OEMs are still wary about the
technology.
"The jury's still out on G.Lite," said Ron Stein, director of
marketing for Paradyne, a Largo, Fla.-based supplier of
xDSL modems and related equipment, in an interview at
Loop '98.
Other OEMs have been unclear about their G.Lite plans,
as well. "We're evaluating chip sets [based on the G.Lite
standard], but we have no idea when we'll offer this
service," said Pat Cunningham, network engineer for
Nortel Networks, in Richardson, Texas.
However, analysts said while cable-modem and xDSL
services appear to be rising at a rapid pace, the
technologies are growing from a much smaller base.
"The cable-modem business is booming," said Rich
Nelson, director of marketing for cable-TV products at
Broadcom. " '98 was the year of proprietary systems, but
'99 will be driven by standard products."
Irvine, Calif.-based Broadcom, which recently introduced
a line of chips and reference design kits to develop
next-generation cable-modem products, has captured
many, if not all, of the design wins in the arena. But that
may not be for long.
"Soon it will be Broadcom and us," said Dwight Decker,
president of Conexant (formerly Rockwell
Semiconductor Systems), in Newport Beach, Calif.
"We'll have our [new cable-modem chip sets in the
market] within the next few weeks."
Murray Hill, N.J.-based Lucent and others said they also
plan to enter the cable-modem chip-set fray next year,
sources said.
|
