Douglas L Ross: Broadband

HP E-Book Reader

Tue, 26 Aug 2003 17:20:53 GMT

Here's another example of a networked appliance that also has a lot of local storage, the application being reading stuff.

Hi-tech tome takes on paperbacks. US researchers have developed a prototype e-book which can hold a whole library on a gadget no bigger than a paperback. [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition]

Surveillance

Tue, 26 Aug 2003 16:59:13 GMT

Ingram spies potential in surveillance. The giant distributor of information-technology products steps into the surveillance market, in a move to provide one-stop shopping for its resellers and customers. [CNET News.com]

Samsumg

Mon, 25 Aug 2003 20:52:45 GMT

From Gilder / Forbes 2003 Telecom Conference in Lake Tahoe, CA. Samsung presented the picture that a 3.5G wireless technology will emerge by ~2007 that would provide a 5-20 Mbps data rate. An interesting application that they are hypothesizing is using 3.5G as a transport mechanism to connect WiFi hotspots

UNE-P Rules From FCC

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 16:18:49 GMT

The FCC released it's 576 page order on UNE-P yesterday. It's hard to tell whether there are any surprises in such a massive thing, but it doesn't appear so.

This is the link to the order [ http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2003/db0821/FCC-03-36A1.pdf] And this is Chairman Powell's comment [http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2003/db0821/FCC-03-36A2.pdf]

F.C.C. Discloses New Rules for Telecom Industry. The rules elaborate on an F.C.C. decision that local telephone companies must share older equipment but not newer technology dedicated to high-speed data. By Jennifer Lee. [New York Times: Technology]

PC to TV Blackboxes

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 15:50:43 GMT

Hauppauge [HAUP; Nasdaq] and others are making these devices that the NYT's Mcmanus describe as "bridging the gap" between the PC and the TV enabling consumers to display "media content" that resides on PCs. Curiously, there is no word on the Hauppague website about the MediaMVP product that Mcmanus references in his article [From PC to TV Screen, a Stream of Multimedia. Your PC is brimming with great photos, MP3's and videos. But your family and friends are glued to the television. By Neil Mcmanus. New York Times: Technology] and no indication of its price or feature set.

Among other things, Hauppaauge makes a 350 Meg PC/DVR card that sells for $200.

Ultrawideband

Mon, 11 Aug 2003 21:11:27 GMT

It looks like Samsung is convinced that the standard for UWB proposed by the Multiband OFDM Alliance [http://www.multibandofdm.org/] is likely to win the standards race, so they are trying to get jump on the industry with commercial products. What markets they will go after first should be interesting, but they apparently aren't saying yet.

Samsung to team on ultrawideband. The consumer-electronics company pairs with chipmaker Staccato Communications to develop products using ultrawideband, a technology that's 100 times faster than Bluetooth. [CNET News.com]

Sexiest Man In America

Mon, 11 Aug 2003 19:10:26 GMT

ABC recently launched it's "Search for the sexiest man in America" contest in conjunction with TV show All My Children [ http://amc.tcsinteractive.com/phase3/index.cfm ] . The contest is comparable to some of BSkyB's iTV programs in the UK. Consumers can use their cell phones to vote by sending a premium text message to the show. [This requires a subscription to premium text messaging plus a transaction charge $0.50 per message.]

This is something of a milestone. It is the first time in the USA that we have seen a linkage between a television program and the use of cellular telephone text messaging premium services.

Digital Technology

Wed, 06 Aug 2003 17:28:01 GMT

Digital (Fill in the Blank) Is on the Horizon. Despite a slump in some technology sectors, consumers are increasingly turning to all sorts of digital gadgets and services. By Steve Lohr. [New York Times: Technology]

John's Hopkins Experiments In Robots & Teleconferencing With Medical Applications

Wed, 06 Aug 2003 13:47:45 GMT

An interesting experiment with exposing patients to robots and teleconferencing to enhance doctor / patient interaction.

Sony Plugs TV Into Notebooks

Tue, 10 Jun 2003 20:03:06 GMT

Sony plugs TV into Vaio notebooks. The Japanese company looks to boost its PC fortunes with a notebook that lets people pause and record live TV for future playback and another that packs Centrino wireless technology. [CNET News.com]

Microsoft At NCTA

Tue, 10 Jun 2003 19:10:46 GMT

Yesterday at NCTA, Microsoft introduce Microsoft^® TV Foundation Edition what they descirbe as "a new digital TV software platform designed to help cable operators get more value from on-demand and other digital TV services"

They simultaneously announced support (http://www.microsoft.com/tv/mstvIndustrySupportPR.mspx) for the platform from cable industry vendors Motorola, Inc., SeaChange, Concurrent Computer Corp., MetaTV Inc., Two Way TV Ltd. and Advanced Digital Broadcast Ltd.

They also announced a customer win (http://www.microsoft.com/tv/cablevisionselectsmspr.mspx) for the software platform with Televisa's Cablevision (CVC) subsidiary, one of Mexico City's largest cable MSO with ~450k subscribers announcing that they will adopt it.

Telecom Industry Launches DSLHome Initiative

Thu, 05 Jun 2003 17:15:08 GMT

DSL Forum launched a new initiative at Supercom to challenge the cable industry for dominance of the Home Network. It's called "DSLHome" and is described in there press release as follows:

"DSLHome has two components: technical innovation and support, as well as market awareness and promotion. This two-tiered approach in tandem with DSL Forum's drive toward fully interoperable equipment will create a real broadband DSL mass market with low consumer prices and simple setup of high-speed broadband powered home networks. As part of this program, the DSL Forum has initiated new technical work to address some key areas:

LAN side DSL customer premise equipment (CPE) configuration specifications
Dual port router requirements
WAN-side DSL CPE management specifications
Interface & System configuration for ADSL on customer premises
Privacy and Protection Security

In addition to this technical work, the DSL Forum will be launching programs to improve users’ knowledge of DSL powered home networks, and equip these users to make educated home network decisions and broadband choices. The first outcome of this effort is a pair of home networking user guides, currently under development and scheduled to be released in 4Q03. "

DSL Growth

Thu, 05 Jun 2003 17:08:47 GMT

The DSL Forum announced that broadband DSL experienced its largest quarterly increase ever, adding 5.5 million new DSL subscribers worldwide in Q1- 2003. They estimate that there are now 41.3 million DSL subscribers worldwide [residential and business] and they are projecting this to grow to 200 million by 2005.

RBOCs FTTH RFP

Thu, 29 May 2003 20:11:11 GMT

Bell South, Verizon and SBC put out press releases today announcing a "joint RFP" for FTTH equipment. Here are the three versions of this announcement:

Verizon http://newscenter.verizon.com/proactive/newsroom/release.vtml?id=80434

SBC http://www.sbc.com/press_room/1,5932,31,00.html?query=20507

Bell South http://bellsouthcorp.com/proactive/newsroom/release.vtml?id=43087

Cisco Announces TWC VoIP Win

Wed, 28 May 2003 13:59:27 GMT

Cisco announced today that Time Warner Cable "is now delivering the first Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) cable primary-line residential telephone service, Digital Phone, to customers in Portland, Maine. Using the industry-leading Cisco® Internet Protocol (IP) voice solution"

Here's the article in telephony online about this announcement. http://telephonyonline.com/ar/telecom_time_warner_cable/index.htm

Alcatel acquires ImagicTV

Fri, 16 May 2003 20:51:08 GMT

ImagicTV has a TV software platform that is deployed mainly in DSL platforms. Alcatel is acquiring them as part of their effort to complete the "triple-play" with DSL.

Ananex acquiring Alcatel and Corning Optical Units

Fri, 16 May 2003 20:41:13 GMT

Avanex is acquiring the optical businesses of Corning and Alcatel for stock representing about 45% of Avanex's value or $65 million. They are acquiring optical components, modules and subsystems for fiber optic transmission networks that should enable Avanex to offer one of the broadest lines of optical and intelligent photonic solutions for enhancing speed and capacity of optical communications systems. Avanex products will now include optical wavelength generation and modulation, multiplexing and demultiplexing, signal amplification, wavelength routing and dispersion compensation.

Broadband High Speed Data Prices Falling

Mon, 05 May 2003 15:35:20 GMT

Verizon announced that it would use promotions to lower pricing and attract new subscribers to its bundled Telephone & DSL services. Verizon's standard DSL pricing is $49.95 per month.

Promotion includes:

New subscriber promotional rate for DSL of $29.95 for the first 6 months. The promotion expires on 5/20/03.
Bundled subscribers [those who take DSL + any level of local telephony] get a discount of $15 per month from the regular DSL rate [effectively pricing DSL at $34.95 for DSL].
Bundled subscribers that take Verizon's premium $59.95 per month Veriation Freedom package (full featured plan with unlimited local and long-distance telephone) + DSL get an extra $5 per month discount on DSL reducing the DSL price to $29.95 per month.

Broadband Cable Access

Fri, 04 Apr 2003 19:49:16 GMT

A lot is being written lately about broadband cable access. This article summarizes a debate at the Computers, Freedom and Piracy conference. Will broadband providers control content?. CFP speakers concerned that major cable operators will control access [InfoWorld: Top News]

Sony's Streaming IP TV Set

Fri, 04 Apr 2003 19:43:37 GMT

Sony TV would grab streams from the Net. The company is developing a plasma screen TV set that's intended to tune in streaming video from home networks and the Internet as easily as regular TV programs, sources say. [CNET News.com]

Microsoft Windows Media9

Fri, 04 Apr 2003 14:29:39 GMT

This is an interesting analysis of the DRM issues surrounding Windows Media9.

Microsoft's digital media mogul. Dave Fester, general manager of Microsoft's Windows Media, needs to balance the use of digital media to boost Windows sales with the piracy concerns of the entertainment industry. [CNET News.com]

Internet Streaming Media Alliance

Thu, 03 Apr 2003 17:55:15 GMT

"The Internet Streaming Media Alliance (ISMA), a global alliance of nearly 40 industry leaders in content management, distribution infrastructure, and streaming media, today announced that it is releasing for peer review a new content protection specification which will serve as the technical foundation for the secure delivery of streaming and download media content."

[See press release http://www.isma.tv/pub/resources/pr.shtml?PR1011.txt ]

Trusted Computing

Thu, 03 Apr 2003 17:48:21 GMT

Wave Systems announced their earnings for Q4 2002 today. According to their press release [see exerpt below] they are looking for strategic partners.

"Steven Sprague, Wave's president and CEO, said, "In order to raise the additional capital required to fund Wave's operations, we have engaged an investment banking firm and are exploring a number of financing alternatives which include debt or equity financing (or a combination of both) or one or more commercial or strategic transactions."

"The personal computing industry is now committed to a historic transition to trusted computing. The most influential players -companies including Microsoft, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, AMD, National Semiconductor, Infineon and others - have publicly committed to a trusted PC environment secured by a hardware chip. Without a doubt, today's inherently insecure PC is morphing to tomorrow's secure and trusted PC which will offer a range of productive services for users. Wave's long commitment to hardware and services-secured trusted computing has made us influential in the evolution of this huge and evolving market opportunity."

AOL Broadband

Tue, 01 Apr 2003 15:46:53 GMT

AOL announced it's new BYOA (bring your own access) service called AOL Broadband on Monday, March 31. Here's their press release: http://media.aoltimewarner.com/media/press_view.cfm?release_num=55253107 and an article in USA today about the announcement. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/internetlife/2003-03-31-aol-broadband_x.htm

Powerline Communications Forum

Fri, 28 Mar 2003 13:07:19 GMT

SSE Telecom, a power utility company in Scotland has commercially deployed PLC technology to deliver ~2 Mbps broadband services to its rural power utility customers. The utility is also hosting a conference of the Powerline Communications Forum (http://www.plcforum.com)

SCOTLAND TO HOST MAJOR POWERLINE COMMUNICATIONS FORUM

SSE Telecom is to host a major international forum in Edinburgh in September to bring together manufacturers, utility companies and research organisations in the field of powerline communication technology (PLC). PLC offers an opportunity to establish broadband communications using the most wide-spread, pre-existing infrastructure – the electricity network, delivering service through house and office wiring to any standard power sockets. SSE Telecom is pioneering affordable broadband services in rural areas with PLC projects in Campbeltown and Crieff.

The forum "Powerline Communications – the World in your socket!" is expected to attract around 60 key delegates from Europe, America and Asia. The event will be held in central Edinburgh from the 11th to the 13th of September.

Scottish and Southern Energy was a founding member of the original Powerline Communications Forum, which had its inaugural meeting in Crieff, in 1999.

Dr Keith MacLean, Director of SSE Telecom, said:
"We are very pleased that the plcforum has accepted our invitation to bring this event to Scotland. PLC technology is an exciting opportunity to utilise the electricity network for broadband communication. Here in Scotland, with our partners Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and Perth & Kinross Council, we are implementing pilots in Campbeltown and Crieff with the intention of establishing that PLC can be used to bring broadband services to rural towns and villages in Scotland very much in line with the aspirations of the DTI and Scottish Executive’s Broadband strategy.

"I look forward to hosting the event and I am sure that Edinburgh, with traditional Scottish hospitality, will be a very popular choice for delegates from Japan, Europe and the USA who are working throughout the world to promote PLC. The event will allow us to share experiences and compare technological advances in PLC from around the world."

NOTE TO NEWS EDITORS

The plcforum is an international association representing the interests of manufacturers, utility companies, research organisations and academics active in the field of powerline technology. The forum includes many of the world’s premier utilities such as Electricite de France, RWE and Tokyo Electric and major electronics companies such as Motorola, Philips and NEC.

The pilot project in Crieff has now started and is showing promise with a good take-up by businesses and domestic householders. Work to market the Campbeltown network is underway prior to final connection in September.

The two pilot networks form part of the Scottish Executive’s Action Plan to implement the DTI’s UK Broadband Fund in Scotland promoting, among other things, innovative methods of extending Broadband coverage in more rural areas.