DSL Prime News Briefs

DSL news from North America and around the world.

by Dave Burstein DSL Prime [December 29, 2003]

e-mail

• Dano Ybarra of Netopia writes offering to install for me one of their new 3D Reach Wi-Fi gateways so I could confirm for myself "you will get significantly better coverage." I'm not set up to test a router right now, but that reminded me not to treat all units alike. 802.11 is not mature, and performance clearly differs widely. 2Wire and others have made announcements lately, and I hope someone at an independent lab (perhaps a telco) leaks me some comparative results. Netopia backed their claims with impressive test results from News IQ Labs in San Diego, see this .pdf file. I know that company sponsored testing, even at an accredited independent lab, can be incomplete. I won't be surprised if Netopia's competitors find another lab, select different tests, and come to different conclusions. So question everything, but I'd much rather start with objective outside testing than the usual company claims. The DSL Forum is moving forward on accrediting labs as well. DSL Prime has an informal policy of including in the news any independent results to encourage more companies to provide them.
  
  
• One FCC staffer cancelled her subscription. I don't know whether she just got bored, or she was angry I criticized so many of her colleagues for jumping into lobbying the agency. An FCC paper by Irene Wu and Cathleen Xue puts the issue well: "Integrity, honesty, ethical principles above private gain. Objectivity, impartiality, a manner that will bear the closest public scrutiny. These are high ideals to which to aspire, and a challenge to maintain. In telecommunications regulation, as in other walks of public life, the real and perceived integrity of officials and their decisions is crucial to their ability to govern effectively. Not only must regulators be fair and impartial, but also they must be perceived as such by the public and the industry in order to be effective."

Reporting

• Max Smetannikov writes in ISP-Planet "ISPs can join the gorillas by buying a $170,000 box." He makes the point becoming "facilities-based" is actually fairly cheap, to the point that the D.C. belief that the investment involved will boost the industry is a over-worked fetish. Dave Dorman of AT&T points out "if they insist, we can drop a box in the CO to meet regulations if they end UNE-P." But there's no interesting social gain from buying some totally unneeded capacity, when existing switches already have more capacity than users need. Buying unneeded switches is a particularly uninteresting featherbed; the total investment involved in switches to 25,000 U.S. COs adds up to a fifth of the investment cutbacks at SBC alone. The leading makers are Chinese, although the U.S. standards may make them hard to import.
  
  
• Joan Engebretson and Shira Levine have done a remarkable job delivering strong reporting at America's Network despite having nearly no staff or budget. Joan is now switching to "contributing" and Kirk Laughlin is taking over.

People

• Danny Gur, who made many friends as a VP at Metalink, joins Terachip, whose TCF16X10 switches 160 Gbps in a single 15W chip. Technology like that will drive the coming generation of routers and DSLAMs, that can deliver to every user the 10-100 Mbps DSL enables. Gur writes cheap off-the-shelf standards based chassis promise a new era of "plug and play" platforms, similar to the PC world. Their first targets are metro Edge switches, 3G cellualr gateways and IPv6 core routers. First customers are in China, with prospects in Japan and Korea.
  
  
• Narda Jones, promoted to Deputy Division Chief at the FCC, is a former criminal prosecutor. Will that help reduce the false information regularly filed by so many commission petitioners? Less rhetorically, there is a need for criminal investigation in her area of responsibility, universal service. Some outright criminal fraud has already been found, and the program needs very strong controls. I disagree with Mike Powell's desire to end USF, but believe the best way to protect universal service is to get rid of the corporate welfare that skims far too much off the top.
  
  
• Brian Adkins is the new legislative director for telecommunications at NARUC, co-ordinating the state regulator's voice in D.C. Jessica Zufulo did a remarkable job in the post, saving a modicum of wireline competition in the Triennial.
  
  
• For job ads, see the DSL Prime website.

Briefs

• Hungary's Matav hit 100,00 DSL customers, and has service available to 2/3 of homes. Controlled by DT, they invested hundreds of millions in the last year to upgrade networks and are starting to get a return.
  
  
• Since late 2000, Alcatel has cut employment overall by 35 percent, but in North America the cut is 60 percent, despite an enormous growth in their primary North American business, DSL.
  
  
• "Customers don't want to worry about usage limits and additional charges" Telstra's Justin Milne, announcing unlimited downloads after a year of user complaints and sales. But check the fine print.

Copyright 2003 Dave Burstein.
The DSL Prime Newsletter is reprinted with permission.

"The power of the printing press belongs solely to those who own the presses"
—A.J. Leibling

The Internet is the cheapest printing press ever invented.