10-28-96
Motorola Apparently Rebounding Well
NEC Announces New Cable Modem
Broadband Technologies Announces New SDV Program
Finnish Cable Operator Chooses Zenith’s Modem
West End System Adds New Products to WestBound System
Maspro Supplying Time Warner with Taps
Jones Intercable Using Kiosks to Help Market Internet Service
TCI Expands to Sunnyvale
Ortel Announces New Source Laser
Belden to Purchase Intech Cable
Motorola Apparently Rebounding Well
Is Motorola foolin’ again or have they picked up the pieces from some inadvisable business moves and successfully gained industry momentum? Earlier this year, I was predicting doom for the Illinois based modem manufacturer. They had misled system operators about delivery dates and had refused to work with standards committees to reach a cable modem standard. They were going to go their own way and stand by their proprietary technology despite recommendations from MCNS and the IEEE 802.14 committee. When they were unable to deliver CyberSURFR units on time, a couple of systems turned to Bay Networks (most notably TCI in Sunnyvale). In addition, Motorola was still embracing a cable modem that provided a mere 768Kbps upstream while Bay Networks and Zenith were pushing out modems with more impressive upstream data rates. I was expecting them to fall on their face, but the tide has certainly appeared to have changed.
Last month, Time Warner went with Motorola’s CyberSURFR modem for use in the MSO’s launch of RoadRunner in Akron/Canton, Ohio. The agreement called for 50,000 Motorola cable modems. Shortly after, CableLabs called in a select group of vendors to discuss technology for a final phase cable modem standard. Motorola was invited to the party, indicating that the some aspects of the telecom giant’s technology would be probably be included in MCNS’ final standard.
Good fortune for Motorola has continued. In addition to announced commitments for over 500,000 modems, Motorola claims it is working with TCI, Comcast and four Time Warner systems on infrastructure issues that will ultimately lead to more CyberSURFR deployments. Furthermore, Motorola is still collecting some impressive international commitments. Last month, Telstra announced that they would use Motorola’s modem in an Internet access service in Melbourne, Australia. This week, Town Kanazawa Cable in Yokohoma, Japan agreed to purchase 1,000 CyberSURFR units. Across the water, Korean Electric Power Data Nework, a government owned telecom subsidiary to Korea Electric Power has chosen Motorola to supply modems for HFC networks covering 70 percent of South Korea. Last, we should not forget that TCI still has a standing order with Motorola for 30,000 modems.
Though the CyberLab was obviously wrong about Motorola’s future in this industry, there are still some looming questions. First, it is still unclear whether the commitments to Motorola are truly commitments or just intentions to buy.
Next and most importantly, are CyberSURFR modems really being shipped in volume? Obviously, there are some units deployed in Ohio, but have the mass shipments that were promised in June made it out their door? I called the Motorola toll-free hotline for some answers - 1-800-2WAY-HFC. Each day this week that I called, I got an answering machine. When I spoke to the operator, she sternly told me that the only way to reach that Motorola division was through that one telephone number (hmm.. telecom giant?). Nevertheless, someday, I will get the chance to ask the question and with the notarized answer, be fully confident Motorola is truly one of the leaders in this business.
Motorola
http://www.mot.com/Multimedia/
NEC Announces Development of New Cable Modem
NEC Cable Media, a subsidiary of NEC, has developed a new
cable modem. The modem which is announced without a
name and without specifications will be initially deployed in
Japanese cable systems operated by NEC. NEC has indicated
that they are aiming to introduce the modem commercially
next spring at a price less than 100,000 yen (about $1000) per
unit.
NEC
http://www.nec.co.jp/index_e.html
Broadband Technologies Announces New SDV Program
Broadband Technologies Inc has announced the development of
a new SDV program that includes a laboratory development system and
technical support for their Broadband FLX-1100 and FLX-2500 SDV platorm.
The current list of customers/partners include Americast, Bell Atlantic,
Divicom, Intel, Lockheed, Lucent, NUKO, Philips, Samsung Electronics,
Samwoo, SAT, Southwestern Bell, TELUS, and Thomson.
Broadband Technologies
http://www.bbt.com
Finnish Operator Chooses Zenith Modem
Telecom Finland has announced that it will use Zenith’s Universal Homeworks System and modem for use in the operators Internet access service in
Lappeenranta, Finland. Telecom Finland’s Internet access service will be
called “Cabinet”. The operator is in the process of upgrading it’s Kouvola system and will provide similar services on that network if the Lappeenranta service is successful.
Zenith
http://www.zenith.com
West End Systems Adds Products to WestBound System
Last Week at ECC ‘96 in London, West End Systems announced two additions to the WestBound system, an end-to-end data communications network for use
over HFC systems.
West End Systems has introduced The 9600 Element Manager, which provides network management. The new product features alarm status monitoring and configuration control and support for WAN, LAN/WAN, and frame relay, telephony and interactive media services applications.
The second addition to the system is The 9600 Ethernet Router, which provides workstation connection for remote teleworking, high speed residential Internet access or LAN interconnect for business applications. TCP/IP and Novel IPX protocol routing is enabled with 4.1 data compression. The headend site provides easy migration to frame relay, ATM or LAN networks.
In addition to the newly announced products, West End Systems also announced that NODE PTA will be distributing the WestBound System in the the Czech Republic and in Slovakia.
West End Systems
http://www.westendsys.com
Maspro Supplying Time Warner with Taps
Maspro Denkoh has announced that it has started shipping telephone taps to Time Warner for use in Time Warner’s planned telephony over cable services. Over the next three years, Maspro plans to ship over 2 million taps to TW over the next three years. Time Warner plans to introduce telephony services early next year.
Time Warner
http://pathfinder.com/@@PsmmGAUA5TfyCi7b/Corp/divisions/cablehome.html
Jones Intercable Using Kiosks To Help Market Internet Access Service
Jones Intercable in Alexandria, Virginia has placed a kiosk in a local CompUSA store to promote its Internet access service. The kiosk includes two PC’s and a Bay Networks modem that is connected to local content servers and a link to the Internet. Jones is negotiating with local grocery stores and hardware store chains to deploy more of these kiosks.
Jones Intercable
http://www.jic.com
Jones Intercable’s Internet Access Service
http://www.digitalempire.com/
TCI’S @HOME Expands to Sunnyvale
Last Week, the @Home folks announced that the service has now been expanded to include both the communities of Fremont and Sunnyvale. TCI is planning to introduce the service in Arlington Heights, IL and Hartford, CT soon.
@HOME
http://www.home.net
Ortel Announces New Source Laser
Ortel has announced a new 1710A high power 1550 nm laser for use in HFC networks. The laser is available in a 14 pin butterfly package with a thermoelectrical cooler and monitor photodiode. The laser is designed with external modulators. The laser features high fiber coupled power-greater than 25mW, narrow linewidth-1~5 MHz, low relative intensity noise-less than -162 db Hz, and it is coupled to polarization preserving fiber.
Ortel
http://www.ortel.com
Belden To Purchase InTech Cable
Belden has negotiated a deal to purchase Intech Cable, a manufacturer of specialty wire and cable with facilities in Hudson, MA, and Charlotte, NC. Intech, which shows revenues of $34 million for 1995, specializes in products for the last mile of the telecom system. Their customers mainly include RBOCS. Belden’s purchase of Intech is pending approval from some government organizations.
© Copyright 2000 Gecko Research & Publishing
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