12/03/01
1. @Home Threatens to Shut Down Service
2. Broadcom Introduces CMTS MAC Chip
3. Arris to Acquire Cadant
4. STMicroelectronics Introduces QAM Demod
5. Sigma Introduces Service Assurance; Deal with Cogeco
6. Core Teams with P-Cube for QoS Management
7. JacobsRimmell Introduces Provisioning Solution
8. Alopa & Tellabs Enter Co-Marketing Deal
9. Cox to Deploy ADC's Provisioning; Riverstone's Routers
10. EarthLink and AOL Launch over TW in LA & NYC
1. @Home Threatens to Shut Down Service
@Home's creditors are behind an initiative to land new affiliate agreements
immediately (talks exclude AT&T) or have the service shut down, leaving 4.1
million subscribers without access. The talks follow today's expiration of
an agreement cut in October with affiliates that required them to pay more
per subscriber and pay off debts to @Home, in order for the provider to
continue provisioning new subs. The affiliates, which have been
unattracted to @Home's legacy terms, are feverishly negotiating a new
short-term contract that will buy them time to shift subs to their own
networks, but they are facing a deadline today. @Home's ability to pull
the plug has been up to U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Thomas Carlson, who heard the
provider's request for service discontinuance today in San Francisco.
Despite a FCC statement to the court urging it to reject the creditor's
request, based on the impact it would have on subscribers, Carlson sided
with bondholders. The judge stated that @Home could break its contract
with affiliates, resulting in the cessation of services. He urged cable
operators to quickly renogotiate contracts. @Home did not comment on the
ruling or indicate if and when it would disconnect.
MSOs are in the process of building their own networks to support all of
their cable modem subscribers, but completion of some of these networks is
scheduled for the second half of next year. AT&T has said that it can
quickly move 20% of its subs to its own network, but may need a week to
bring all of its users on-board. Cox has accelarated construction of its
own network, initially scheduled for completion in June of 2002. This
week, the MSO announced that it would be deploying Riverstone's routers and
ADC's provisioning technology as part of its developing network. Cox would
not estimate how long it would take to complete the network under fire or
comment on the potential extent of service interruptions. Comcast's new
network is rumored to be more inocmplete than Cox's effort. Like Cox,
Comcast would not comment on the impact of a service shut down, but said
that it is working closely with @Home to develop alternatives. Charter may
be best prepared for a shut down. Only 20% of its cable modem subs are
currently connected through @Home. The MSO projects that it may be able to
migrate all of its @Home subs to its own PipeLine service within a week.
The MSOs have been sending their @Home subs letters informing them of a
possible service interruption and advising them to back up e-mail and web
files. Comcast has suggested subs use the NetZero dialup service during
downtime. Others, if not all of the MSOs, have said they are preparing to
compensate users for any service interruptions with prorated billing,
discounts, and freebies.
Some analysts have indicated that a service shut down might result in a
huge migration to DSL. However, a mass exodus seems unlikely due to the
limited service availability, the required new equipment investments,
higher fees in most areas, and the turnaround for installations. Most, if
not all, of DSL adopters would have their cable modem service resumed
before getting DSL service activated.
Frank Thomas, a leader of an @Home shareholder committee, has said that the
threat is "just a bunch of huffing and puffing by some very big elephants,"
and that he had expected the Bankruptcy court to disallow the service to be
cut off. Bondholders have suggested that a service shut down will bring
media attention to the company's value, and ultimately bring in new bidders.
Thomas' shareholder group, a committe with a different agenda than
bondholders, has developed a reorganization plan that would reduce @Home's
monthly fee to $12.25 per subscriber, increase subscriber base to just
under 25 million, and raise revenues to $3.6 billion by 2010. Under the
plan, creditors would have to extend debt payments, but eventually all
debts would be repaid in full. Affiliates would pay @Home $15 per
subscriber per month and pick up all service marketing costs.
@Home
http://www.home.net
2. Broadcom Introduces CMTS MAC Chip
Broadcom has introduced the BCM3212, a DOCSIS/EuroDOCSIS 1.1-based CMTS MAC
that enables headends to support up to 192 downstream channels and up to
768 upstream channels in a 7-foot rack. The technology provides full-line
rate support, flexibility to allocate and redirect cable plant bandwidth,
and the ability to change CTMS line cards with no downtime. The chip
supports both PCI and Gigabit Ethernet connections for CMTS apps. It
operates in a range of -40 to +85 degrees Celsius, supporting CMTS
deployments in outdoor enclosures. The feature management channel in the
BCM3212 controls subscriber equipment such as power management, integrated
cable modems and voice gateways.
A reference design with 6 upstream channels and one downstream channel is
available.
The MAC is packaged in an 841-pin BGA and goes for $200 per unit in
500-piece quantities. Sample quantities are currently available.
Broadcom has said that ADC, Arris, Cadant, and Motorola will be using the
technology.
In other Broadcom news, a jury trial between the company and Intel is under
way. In the suit, filed in August 2000, Intel alleges that Broadcom has
infringed upon several of its patents including technology used for its
networking chip and digital video chips. Intel is seeking $82 million in
damages. Broadcom is countersuing Intel for unfair business practices and
abuse of industry standards. During the past 2 years, Broadcom and Intel
have filed four patent and trade-secret actions against each other. Just
last week, Broadcom filed a separate lawsuit against Intel, claiming that
sets of Intel chips used with its Pentium III and other processors infringe
on graphics patents held by Broadcom.
Broadcom
http://www.broadcom.com
Intel
http://www.intel.com
3. Arris to Acquire Cadant
Arris has said that it will acquire Cadant for 5.25 million shares of
common stock and assume approximately $17 million in liabilities at the
closing and would pay up to 2.0 million additional shares based upon future
CMTS sales. Arris and Cadant are the only vendors with DOCSIS 1.1
qualified headends.
Arris
http://www.arrisi.com
Cadant
http://www.cadant.com
4. STMicroelectronics Introduces QAM Demod
STMicroelectronics has introduced the STV0297J, a QAM/FEC demodulator chip
compliant with DVB-C/ITU J83-A/B/C specs and able to decode ITU J83-C
bitstream including transport stream multiplex frame. The technology
includes a A/D converter that can handle up to 256-QAM signals in a direct
IF sampling architecture. The chip can handle symbol rates ranging from
11.7 Mbaud down to 0.87 Mbaud, even in the presence of frequency offset.
It supports 16, 64, and 256 QAM constellations and 32 and 128 QAM
non-square constellations. The STV0297J outputs error corrected MPEG-2
transport streams in multiple formats including the DVB Common Interface
format.
Sample quantities of the chip are currently available, delivered in compact
TQFP64 packaging. Volume production is scheduled for the second quarter of
2002.
STMicroelectronics
http://www.st.com
5. Sigma Introduces Service Assurance; Deal with Cogeco
Sigma Systems has introduced Service Diagnostics Manager to its suite of
subscriber management and provisioning solution. The tool automates the
troubleshooting process through the use of multiple pre-configured tests
that can be launched by CSRs and TSRs. The software queries the customer's
profiles, establishing their service portfolios and quality levels. Network
elements and application servers associated with the subscriber's service
are tested to establish the trouble source. Ultimately, the Service
Diagnostic Manager determines if problems originate with the operator or
subscriber. New trouble tickets and service advisories may be creted using
the test results.
In other news, Sigma has said that Cogeco is using its solution to move its
cable modem subs from the @Home platform to Cogeco's own platform.
Sigma Systems
http://www.sigma-systems.com
Cogeco
http://www.cogecocable.com
6. Core Teams with P-Cube for Qos Management
Core Networks has announced that it has integrated P-Cube's technology into
its subscriber management and provisioning solution to enhance the system's
QoS management. The add-on will provide identification and control of
abusive users, access to node usage statistics for capacity planning and
simplified node moves and splits, support of tiered services, support of
multiple billing practices, and support of bandwidth intense applications
and events. The enhancement will also provide subscribers with a
centralized firewall for enforcing QoS level and preventing virus attacks.
In other news, Core has said that it has released a new version of its
CoreOS solution. The upgrade offers DOCSIS 1.1 and Oracle database
support, enhanced network intelligence, billing and mediation integration,
security enhancements, and proprietary modem support.
Core is working with Pacific Broadband Communications to ensure its system
is compatible with the vendor's headend equipment.
Core Networks
http://www.corenetworks.com
P-Cube
http://www.p-cube.com
7. JacobsRimmell Introduces Provisioning Solution
JacobsRimell has introduced the second version of Broadband Cable Package,
a subsriber management and provisioning solution. The new version supports
provisioning of digital television and cable modem services and faster
installation. The technology upgrade includes directory enabled DHCP and
RADIUS service architectures as well as a XML billing gateway API for
integration with multiple BBS systems, DTV middleware systems, and cable
modem systems.
JacobsRimell
http://www.jacobsrimell.com
8. Alopa & Tellabs Enter Co-Marketing Deal
Alopa Networks has said that its subscriber management and provisioning
solution has achieved interoperability with Tellabs' cable voice and data
solutions and that the two will co-market the technology combo.
Alopa Networks
http://www.alopa.com
Tellabs
http://www.tellabs.com
9. Cox to Deploy ADC's Provisioning; Riverstone's Routers
Cox Communications has announced that it has signed a 3-year agreement with
ADC to deploy its FastFlow Broadband Provisioning Manager nationwide. The
ADC solution, currently deployed by Cox in an open access trial in El
Dorado, Arkansas, supports DOCSIS/EuroDOCSIS 1.0/1.1, PacketCable, and open
access.
Cox has also announced that it will deploy hundreds of Riverstone's routers
nationwide include the vendor's RS 3000 metro access routers, RS 8000/8600
multi-service metro routers and RS 38000 metro aggregation routers. The
technology is scheduled to be deployed within the next few months.
Cox Communications
http://www.cox.com
ADC
http://www.adc.com
Riverstone Networks
http://www.riverstonenet.com
10. EarthLink and AOL Launch over TW in LA & NYC
EarthLink and AOL have launched their respective services over Time Warner
cable systems in Los Angeles (610,000 HHP) and New York City (2 million HHP).
AOL
http://www.aol.com
EarthLink
http://www.earthlink.net
© Copyright 2000 Gecko Research & Publishing
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