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

To: VINTHO who wrote (40758)	5/10/1999 5:24:00 PM
From: John Rieman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

Philips shows off it's cable wares........................... cableworld.com Philips to Showcase Full System Capabilities Netherlands' equipment maker jumps into the DOCSIS cable modem business By Jim Barthold Philips Broadband Networks Inc. will use this month's Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) Cable Tec Expo in Orlando as a "coming out" party for its end-to-end digital broadband system. The Netherlands-based firm will introduce a "DOCSIS-compliant" cable modem that it is resubmitting for CableLabs' ninth certification round. It also will promote its "open" network solution that culminates in an "OpenCable-compliant" set-top box. Finally, it will demonstrate the nuts-and-bolts flexibility of its dense wave division multiplex (DWDM) architecture. "We tend to be a conservative company," explained Paul Pishal, business development director of the Netherlands-based Royal Philips Electronics NV parent company. Philips, he said, is emphasizing in-home retail products that range from flat screen high definition TVs to cable modems and, eventually, digital set-tops. "We've been in the game for a pretty long time," said Dave Torr, group manager, data/voice access systems, who said Philips has been developing the cable modem for three-and-a-half years. That product, he said, will be the company's first chance to use its consumer retail experience with U.S. cable customers. The retail strategy will continue with the company's open-standards-based digital set-top. Before it was acquired by AT&T Corp., MediaOne Group Inc. selected that box as the centerpiece of its digital strategy. It is "premature to say" whether that will now change, said Pishal, although AT&T's record has been to stick with tried-and-true boxes from traditional suppliers Scientific-Atlanta Inc. and General Instrument Corp. In addition to open standards, Pishal said that Philips has digital network experience from the studio through the uplink encoding to the headend and the home, where the company builds digital TV sets. As part of this process, Philips will showcase a set-top platform based on its TriMedia programmable media processor chip that offers such capabilities as Internet browsing, MPEG-1, 2 and 4 processing and DVD capabilities. Philips also will offer operators "selective conditional access," although the company prefers its own CryptoWorks version. "We're conditional access agnostic in our system architecture," Pishal said. The architecture is built to meet the cable industry's shifting needs, said Tony Pierson group product manager-HFC transport systems. The DWDM architecture, he said, allows Philips "to be able to react quickly for (customers)" changing needs. It can be used on a new rebuild/upgrade basis or as an existing network overlay as operators pursue a "speed to revenue" policy. The system, he said, can deliver more channels on a single fiber than other methods. Those signals can be divided at nodes to meet subscriber needs as operators pursue individual incremental revenue pockets. "Our customers keep asking us for unique solutions that solve their problems in the RF arena," he explained. "We do have a competitive advantage in how we manufacture products - and that lets us spin things up very quickly." (May 10, 1999)