DSL Prime News Briefs

DSL news from North America and around the world.

by Dave Burstein DSL Prime [July 7, 2004]

e-mail

• Jef Raskin writes, reminding what DSL enables. "I talked a conference in Paris into saving the atmosphere a little by letting me do another real-time interactive presentation via video. The last one, in Austria, worked out well. Saves me days of travel for a 45-minute talk, saves them thousands of euros, and shows off technology. Lazy me."
  
  
• "DSL Reports, which you probably read ..." was one comment I wanted to jump on. I don't just "probably read"—I check it two or three times most days, for the best flow of info in this business.

Briefs

• Verizon is almost ready with their VoIP service, which has enough features to keep Vonage on their toes. Some details here.
  
  
• SBC is apparently close to a decision on QoS/content blocking equipment, with Ericsson/Copper Mountain and Alcatel/Redback rumored in the lead. QoS, despite David Isenberg's ideas, might have a place if the price was right. But the projected SBC investment only makes sense as an attempt to block Vonage, NetFlix, ESPN Direct, and the hundreds of video services about to blossom as the economics are right.
  
  
• Best of SUPERCOMM: Michael Canady has just opened a chocolate shop at 824 South Wabash Avenue. I couldn't resist stopping as I walked to the show, and enjoyed an excellent gelato he makes in the shop. On the liquor-filled delights I brought home, Jennie says "Excellent. I wish I had enough of them to get drunk." The Art Institute has some of the finest Impressionists in the world, and is open late Thursday night.
  
  
• Martin Schenk of Centillium pointed to significant wins outside Japan, including a Marconi announcement I had missed.
  
  
• A friend from Adtran pointed out one reason it's so hard for new vendors to break into the Bells. "When you go to Larry Babbio with a recommendation your career could be on the line. You want to be absolutely sure the folks you're recommending will solve any problems that come up, because they've proven the relationship is worth it to them."
  
  
• I'm disappointed Carlos Slim of Telmex resigned from the SBC board, because his personal fortune in the billions made him potentially the most independent director. Officially "He resigned effective yesterday so that he can become more involved in private and public sector issues in Latin America—in particular infrastructure, health, education and the environment." He's also made his son head of Telmex and backed away form other ventures. Owning 5 percent of SBC stock gave him unique independence on the SBC board, which will soon have to pick Whitacre's replacement.

Press

• Martyn Warwick brought out the big gun for AT&T's anemic effort "For if there ever was, as Macbeth had it, 'a tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing' the blustering announcement by AT&T ... certainly fits the bill." E., will you please stop suggesting I'm a tool of AT&T propaganda every time I write critically about your company. I do my best to see through everyone's PR, and you can see above I'm happy to applaud your real accomplishments.
  
  
• Sam Dillon, covering the USAC scandal for the NY Times, reported from Mexico before coming to the education beat. His book, Opening Mexico, details government corruption and drug connections. Beyond an onerous libel suit and other government pressure to back off, he had to deal with credible fears for his life. On this story, all of us writing face pressure from our consciences and friends to protect a valuable program. We know that the negative reports could hurt school funding, but also feel an obligation to report enormous rip-offs. The official response, "a few bad apples," simply doesn't correspond to what's widely known in the industry. The reports are from across the nation, and the private information is even more egregious. My response is to editorialize "we need to save the program by cutting waste." Still, I fear readers will remember the gory details and possibly ignore the positive.
• Interesting Headlines: "Microsoft to ask court for more time to kill off competitors," by John Paczkowski SJ Merc.

People

• Ben Silverman has left the New York Post to join FindProfit.com, an investment site run by the former Raging Bull folks. He's broken far more than his share of telecom stories, so he'll be missed. Good thing for Verizon he's not reporting anymore—his neighborhood in Brooklyn is having major service problems that left him out of touch and angry. Brooklyn was NYNEX's early test bed for fiber, because old wires caused repeated service trouble. If Verizon doesn't priority upgrade the area, RoadRunner, Vonage and Skype will be a natural choice in America's fifth largest city. "Telecom reporting doesn't have to be boring. The issues are crucial, and the people far more interesting than how the press portrays them."
  
  
• Ellen Muraskin has joined Ziff as editor of eWEEK.com's VoIP & Telephony Center, where her reporting is right on target. For example, "snom pledges particularly strict adherence to the latest Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)-ratified SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) specifications. The company is so standards-compliant, in fact, that its phones will work with the Asterisk open-source Linux SIP server." That highlights one of VoIP's key problems, that services are incompatible because few follow the standards well enough.
  
  
• Michael Balmoris, who's been a straight shooter at the FCC, is moving to SBC, Telephony reports. He can only raise the level of discourse.
  
  
• For job ads, see the DSL Prime website.

Stock Market

• Steve Levy's ballgame party at Comiskey Park was a highlight of SUPERCOMM, and just one reason buyside investors make sure to be on Lehman's list.
  
  
• Blake Bath of Lehman offers a dissenting view on VoIP's impact. "We believe the impact of VoIP on RBOC revenue and profits is greatly exaggerated and reiterate our 2-Neutral rating of the Wireline Service sector, and 1-OW ratings on SBC and VZ. Even assuming very aggressive marketing and consumer uptake of Cable (and other) VoIP offerings, the annual revenue loss by the RBOCs is expected to be less than 2 percent of their total revenue over the next 3 years. We believe these losses in Consumer wireline are relatively inconsequential, particularly in light of potential for RBOCs to report above consensus results in their much larger wireless segments."

Copyright 2004 Dave Burstein.
The DSL Prime Newsletter is reprinted with permission.

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